History of National French Dip Day
Cole’s Pacific Electric Buffet, situated in Los Angeles, is one of the first restaurants that served the popular French Dip sandwich. And National French Dip Day marks the 110th anniversary of Cole’s restaurant, which opened on November 12, 1908.
French dip is a roast meat sandwich where the juices of the roast meat are collected and served separately as a side dish to the sandwich. The sandwich is then dipped in the gravy. Cole’s began serving the French dip sandwich in 1908. The sandwich was specially prepared for a customer, who had sore gums and could not chew his roast beef sandwich. The customer asked the restaurant’s chef, Jack Garlinghouse, to moisten the sandwich bread with some roast meat juice. Soon, more and more customers started asking for the same sandwich, and it became one of the top-selling dishes of the restaurant.
Cole’s is one of the first restaurants that came up with the idea of serving roast beef juice with their sandwich. However, another popular restaurant Philippe’s claims that its owner, Philippe Mathieu, is the inventor of the sandwich. Since both restaurants have been operating since the early 1890s, it is still difficult to identify the original creator of the sandwich.
