The United States is a land of God tier sandwiches, with Chicago arguably being in the top 3 cities (and it’s not # 2 or 3). I should know, as a touring musician I’ve eaten in a LOT of them. So when I was approached about making my OWN sandwich, I had to be mindful of the broad shoulders I was standing on and commit fully to not f*cking up! Thankfully, Gotham Bagels made it so failure wasn’t even close to an option.

I thought heavily about all the deliciousness I’ve enjoyed over the course of my 33 years, got hungry, ate something, took a nap, and then kept pondering. My more recent adventures in the kitchen, specifically this past December when our home was transformed into a latke factory, were where I found the greatest inspiration. The big revelation then was when I recalled the delicious jerk wings my friend Troy had made the previous summer and decided that I needed to jerk my latkes. Our friend Neville gave me the heads up on where I could get the seasoning, and within a few days I was hearing from people how much they LOVED the food, especially with the jerk. Might this be what my sandwich needed? Of course!

The result - The Irving Park, a sandwich that’s as much me as the bag of skin + bones I’m currently using to type this. Put simply, it’s a good chunk of my favorite food things synthesized together to make something undeniably irresistible. Bagel? Everything. Meat? Pastrami. Egg? Yes, over medium. Latke? Duh. Shmear? JERKED!!!! Holy cow, I need one right now!!!! And from the response we’ve had one week in, it seems like a lot of you did too.

Many thanks to all of you who’ve grabbed it thus far and to the Gotham team for inviting this food lover to try his hand at making sandwich history. We done good! And this ain’t no “one n done”—I got some fun ideas cooking up inside my head for future things too so stay tuned😉

Instagram: @richjones_music // Twitter: @jonessoruthless // Music: richjonesmusic.bandcamp.com