The men behind the legends of The Tyler sandwich, The Andrew hot dog and the Baseball Special smoothie can still be found roaming around campus.
During the past year, Rick's Diner, Pauly Dogs and Quenchers-three popular campus eateries-have each named a menu item after a few regular customers.
"Tyler came in here on a Friday night... and told one of our third shift cooks, Jermaine, to make the biggest club sandwich he could," said Vincent Brown, general manager of Rick's Diner. "Tyler even set his own price for the sandwich-$20."
The way sophomore Tyler Wasieleski tells the story, he originally wanted a challenge to see which cook could make the better sandwich. Only Jermaine Brown, a third-shift cook at Rick's Diner, however, was willing to participate in the endeavor.
"Jermaine was totally down for it, and I'm like, 'Alright let's do this,'"Wasieleski said. "We started throwing on all types of meats... piling it onto one sandwich, and we dubbed it The Tyler sandwich. It's really good, and it's really big."
The original Tyler sandwich was a double club with extra meats. "Jermaine made this enormous sandwich," Vincent Brown said. "Tyler was just so excited. And it took him and three other friends to eat it."
Since that night, the popularity of the sandwich has grown by word of mouth.
"People just come in here and scream, 'Tyler Sandwich,'" Vincent Brown said. "It is a sandwich you will not forget. Trust me."
The Andrew hot dog of Pauly Dogs, however, took junior Andrew Godfrey much longer to create.
"Andrew came by every day since his freshman year," said Paul Konstanzer, owner and operator of Pauly Dogs. "We tried different toppings-he ended up getting the potato salad everyday and tried different things that go well with potatoes."
After several weeks of trial and error, Godfrey settled on the combination of potato salad, bacon, ranch dressing, Old Bay spice mix and yellow mustard-unofficially naming it The Andrew. When Andrew started getting The Andrew every day, the popularity of the new hot dog spread gradually until its addition to the menu at the beginning of the school year became inevitable.
"I remember last year Pauly added potato salad to his toppings list, and then I just started putting stuff on it," Godfrey said. "He called me one day during finals week and told me that he was going to put it on the menu."
Quenchers, the popular snack shop among athletes in Wilson Gymnasium, has offered the Baseball Special smoothie-cookies and cream with peanut butter and protein powder-on its official menu since last year.
"The baseball team gave me the idea of naming smoothies after sports teams," said Jack Chao, manager of Quenchers. "When kids order a smoothie, it reminds them that there might be a game soon."
The soccer, lacrosse, tennis, track and field and water polo teams have each participated in naming new flavors. The teams will also get the honor of renaming the Chocolate Elvis smoothie.
The new smoothies are available upon request, but they will not appear on the official menu until next month.
Like the smoothies, the Tyler sandwich is still a menu item only for those in the know-although patrons hope it will become a permanent addition to the menu.
"The Tyler Sandwich came into existence the second week we opened back up after summer break," said Vincent Brown. "The students are actually quite happy with it, and they ask for it a lot."
The sandwich, altered slightly from its original form, is now made with three slices of the customer's choice of breads, ham, turkey, roast beef, lettuce, tomato and cheese.
No ordinary Club sandwich, The Tyler covers an entire plate and towers more than five inches in height. The price of the sandwich has since been set at $25.
Sophomore Mark DellaVolpe learned of the sandwich on a visit to Rick's with his roommate, sophomore Travis Nelson.
"We saw a couple of people indulging in a sandwich, and it looked mighty fine," DellaVolpe said. "So we asked them what it was, and they said it was a Tyler sandwich."
DellaVolpe and Nelson immediately ordered the sandwich and finished it with help from a couple of other people.
"I could have finished it myself if I wanted to," DellaVolpe said. "It was the most mind-blowing experience I've had at Duke."
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