”Face it, you can get a sandwich just about anywhere,” said Roberta Rapata, proprietor of Boloney`s Sandwich Shop in Barrington. ”But people always seem to want other things around them, and that`s what we offer.”
Rapata and partner Tim O`Connor established Boloney`s in October 1981 after serving a disheartening six-week apprenticeship with the store`s previous owner. ”It was pretty strange to see people walk in, look at the menu and just walk out,” Rapata recalled. ”There were only three or four food choices and only lemonade or cola to drink.”
The hospitality wasn`t much either, according to Rapata. A diner once asked for something to read, and the waitress handed him the telephone book.
But that was before Rapata and O`Connor put their personal stamp on the business. The menu was developed through trial and error during the early months, when the restaurant was open Sundays. That was the day customers were given the chance to sample new items. Today Boloney`s offers nearly three dozen sandwiches and seven kinds of bread, plus a salad bar, chili and a fresh soup of the day.
Along with standbys such as egg salad ($3.75) and roast beef ($4.50), there are combinations such as the San Diego ($5) featuring a tasty mix of turkey, American cheese, sprouts, cucumber, tomato and dressing. Be forewarned: sandwiches are huge, often enough for two appetites.
The business has grown so much that additional tables and chairs are set up every day in the lobby of the adjoining Catlow Theater (which Rapata and O`Connor have bought) to accommodate the overflow at lunch.
Care to read? Here`s today`s paper and recent copies of People, Cosmopolitan and Esquire. Or you can watch MTV, which plays all day on a set over the salad bar.
The staff is handpicked, and Rapata instructs them, ”Be friendly, be understanding, be polite. Customers are probably not getting that at home. Everything we do is for the customer,” she noted. ”Without them, we don`t need to be here.”
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Boloney`s Sandwich Shop, 114 W. Main St., Barrington, is open from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday. Closed Sunday. Phone 708-381-0645.
