Small business loses out to national chain

By Sean Stroud

Rising ingredient costs and Texas’s cutthroat real estate market have led to the loss of a beloved local eatery, New York Sub. The staple SMU sandwich shop first opened in 1974, well before the Subway chain expanded into Texas, and will close at the end of February. Andrew Kelley announced the closure earlier this month in a Facebook post:

“After 53 years of first dates, post-game meals, and late-night study breaks, New York Sub is losing its home at 3411 Asbury Street at the end of February. We were in the middle of negotiating another 10-year lease when our landlord sold the building, and while the new owners have been kind, we simply can’t make the new financial terms work.”

Many locals were devastated by the news. For some, going to New York Sub was a family tradition; it’s the kind of place people introduced to their kids after having grown up eating there themselves. Almost everyone around the Highland Park area seemed to have their own story of grabbing a bite as a post-game ritual or popping in for a sub while home for the holidays.

From the concrete floors and wooden rafters overhead to the old-school magnetic menu and vintage arcade cabinets, the place exudes a familiar warmth, even for a first timer. Kelley’s kids laughed from behind the corner booth and patrons of all ages stopped by for a bite as we sat down to talk about the shop and how Kelley got involved in the first place. The sandwich savant grew up in Dallas and frequented the spot when he was younger — he even boasts that he’d gotten the shop’s last sandwich before its first closure back in 2014.

Two years later, while home for Thanksgiving, Kelley was driving down Asbury to visit his brother and, as he passed the empty building, an idea sprang to mind. Kelley had helped open a few restaurants after college but had never taken a crack at owning one himself. He reached out to the original owner, Ken Harkness, and the rest is history, he says.

He jokes about how closely his life resembles that of Carmy Berzatto from FX’s “The Bear:” Kelley studied at Chicago’s Kendall College, both worked as sous chefs at prestigious restaurants, both returned to their hometowns to revive a dead sandwich shop, and the similarities don’t stop there. When the show originally aired, Kelley says he received multiple calls from friends asking, “Dude, have you seen this show?”

Kelley also clearly shares the same bearish passion for his food; upon taking over NY Sub, he revamped the fan-favorite original menu using higher quality ingredients and produce. Aside from cured meats, he prepares all of their meat from scratch, with some cuts like their prime brisket taking up to three weeks to finish. As he talks, a multitude of different awards and articles praising the shop’s sandwiches can be seen pinned up on the front counter just a few feet behind where Kelley sits, so he’s clearly doing something right.

But as the economy has gone further downhill and prices continue to rise on just about everything imaginable, Kelley has had to bump up prices to match. The problem is that some sandwiches already cost $20 alone, so there’s only so much he can do to balance out the margins before customers start to complain. Kelley lays it out plainly: “Our product is not cheap because it is not cheap to make.”

Kelley added: “They [the landlords] want me to stay, and I want to stay, but ever since losing all of the HPISD catering to Jersey Mike’s and other national and international brands, it has been a race just to make the rent each month. The revenue from the middle school football catering used to cover the landlord’s property taxes, and the high school football catering would take care of the landlord’s insurance. Losing that work has had a real, immediate impact on our ability to keep up.

“The neighborhood simply grew up around us faster than a small family business could grow with it, and despite everything we have invested, we have struggled to keep pace,” he said.

There’s still time to stop by for a sub before the shop closes next month. And Kelley is still exploring ways to keep the shop open or find a new home somewhere else in the area. If readers know of any landlords, brokers, investors or available spaces near SMU or the Park Cities, reach out to New York Sub on Facebook.

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