A sandwich shop is moving into one of Porter Square's most familiar addresses. The Sub Shop plans to open its first brick-and-mortar location this month at 1760A Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge, taking over the spot long occupied by The Half Shell, the pizza-and-subs institution that closed after nearly 30 years in business.
The Half Shell's closure came in September, after the Lagoudakis family had run the diner-style eatery since 1998, according to the Cambridge-Somerville Independent. Cambridge Day reported that longtime customers friendly with the family said the Lagoudakis family, after serving pizza and subs for 28 years, thought it was time to close and wanted to see more of its grandchildren. Josh Winer, who owns The Sub Shop, had spent more than a year searching for a neighborhood for his permanent shop before securing the Porter Square location, as reported by MassLive.
A Familiar Menu Lands on Mass. Ave.
Winer told the Independent he expected to open as soon as mid-October, and that he is keeping it kind of a classic American sub shop, so he is not doing major renovations. The plan, per MassLive, is to maintain the classic diner aesthetic of the former 900-square-foot space while bringing over his Fort Point menu of signature 9-inch subs on sesame-seeded rolls. The Cambridge store will serve the same roster that made the shop's name, including Spicy Calabrian Chicken and a Shaved Ribeye steak and cheese, the Independent reports.
Those rolls aren't an afterthought. The Sub Shop's own site describes sesame-crusted rolls baked from scratch every morning after a 24-hour ferment — the kind of detail that separates a sub shop from a sandwich counter. The former Half Shell space seated 20 people in its 900 square feet, a scale Winer appears to be preserving rather than expanding.
A Nod to the Old Half Shell
Winer didn't just inherit the address — he borrowed a bit of the old menu's spirit, too. He created a vegetarian sandwich inspired by the Half Shell's jalapeño poppers, built with roasted peppers, a cream cheese sauce and the house mix of crispies, according to the Independent's reporting. It's a small tribute to the shop that held down the corner for decades before handing off the keys.
Winer said in September that he was excited to serve the community, per the Independent. He's also said to be hiring counter servers and sandwich makers as the opening approaches, per MassLive's report. The new shop announced its upcoming arrival in an Instagram post Monday, according to MassLive, as it readies the space long known for pizza and subs for its next chapter as a dedicated sandwich destination.
