Pret has been the go-to for a quick lunch for as long as we can remember, with sandwiches, wraps, and salads all waiting to be snapped up.
But following the furore over the subscription change (RIP free coffees), many have had to find somewhere else to go for their lunch, and there’s one shop that’s been hailed as the chain’s replacement in London.
, a family-run business, has gone viral online, garnering more than 200,000 followers on Instagram for its mammoth sarnies, which reviews claim are the ‘size of a small child’ and can weigh up to one kilo.
The original shop is located in Bristol, but it proved so successful that owners expanded with a store in London — and they’ve just announced a second location in the capital, that’s set to be the biggest sandwich shop in the UK.
According to their Instagram post, this new spot will be ‘3500 sq ft of sandwich heaven’, and is set to open in either December 2024 or January 2025.
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Demand for their sandwiches has skyrocketed in London since they opened here earlier this year.
Queues form daily outside the Gresham Street location, stretching down the road, with people waiting up to an hour for a £7.95 sandwich. The police even had to get involved to ensure a frenzy didn’t ensue when customers were turned away at one particularly busy point.
Lewis Capaldi is a fan, Prue Leith is said to have been ‘blown away’ by the roast beef sandwiches, and the team has even managed to charm Gordon Ramsay.
Comments on social media claim the sandwiches, which include supersized versions of classics like Coronation Chicken, All Day Breakfast, and Egg Mayo, look ‘dreamy’, are ‘perfection’, and people often compare them to works of ‘art’.
I’ve been following the Sandwich Sandwich account on Instagram for a while now but had never made it down to Bristol, so naturally I was thrilled when they announced the London shop.
I was lucky enough to be one of the first customers through the doors, and dozens of people packed in to watch the magic unfold behind an ice cream-style counter filled with meats, cheeses and salad.
The whole thing is quite theatrical, as staff make everything in front of you, reaching into gelato-esque mountains of coleslaw or cream cheese and bringing back handfuls of the stuff, before rolling and shaping it to fit perfectly on the bread, then smushing it down on top.
It’s a unique approach, but also a little offputting — I don’t really want to watch someone play with my food before I eat it.
Still, like every other person in the place, I waited with bated breath throughout the process to see that perfect cross-section of my stacked-to-the-heavens sandwich as it was sliced in two and presented to me.
I opted for the Southern Fried Chicken on brown bread, which is packed full of chicken, house coleslaw, lettuce, and spicy creole sauce, and there’s no denying that it looked epic.
The finished product was roughly as big as my head, and while it made for a great Instagram snap, it did present a rather sizeable problem… how on earth are you meant to eat it?
Yes, you’re getting an impressive amount of food for your money here, but it’s almost impossible to take a bite.
Josh Kleiner, Sandwich Sandwich’s head of operations and marketing, recently told the Independent that he’d be ‘impressed’ if anyone in London could actually finish one of their sandwiches, and honestly, so would I — I failed miserably at tackling mine.
The whole thing was just too much. And there was definitely too much coleslaw; unfortunately, it was all I could taste.
I’m not normally one to complain about generous portion sizes, but I do think this might be a classic example of bigger not always being better.
If I’m buying a sandwich, I want to be able to grab it and go, but these giant ‘doorstoppers’ don’t really work for a quick lunch. They’re too messy, and once you finally figure out how to eat them, the filling starts falling out all over the place.
Fans of Man vs Food type challenges will likely love Sandwich Sandwich, but for me, it was just disappointing.
The pictures lured me in, but (ironically) the real thing didn’t quite measure up.
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