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Burt Lancaster Ate Here

The walls of The White House Sub Shop are crammed like a mother’s dresser, only the framed photos are of famous patrons. Johnny Mathis. Dean Martin. Liberace. Tom Jones. Wayne Newton. Billy Crystal. Carrot Top. Oprah Winfrey. Jay Leno. George Clooney. Look around, and you can see the history of every stage in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Stars come to the casinos by the sea to get a paycheck. Then they stop at the corner of Arctic and Mississippi to get immortality.

And they always get one of the five stools at the white formica counter or one of the nine bright orange booths—that’s all there has ever been since 1946, when Anthony Basile returned from U.S. Army duty in the Philippines and decided to sell halves for a quarter and wholes for 50 cents. His subs were an instant hit, and to this day, his sub shop almost always has a line spilling out the door and into the shadow of Trump Plaza, Caesar’s and Bally’s a block away. This is not the fancy part of town, but tourists in Mercedes drive over just as often as blackjack dealers wander in on foot and boaters arrive by cab.

You might remember the place from its cameo in the 1979 film Atlantic City starring Burt Lancaster and Susan Sarandon. There’s a whole corner devoted to photographs from it, across the room from “Governor’s Corner,” which is full pictures of politicians who have run the Garden State for the past half-century.

At 5:30 on a Thursday, a couple old enough to have seen Atlantic City on a date wandered in and approached the nearest waitress, who performed a monologue for them in staccato allegro:

“We have no tables available right now. If you’ll take a seat in the entryway, I’ll call you when something opens up.”

I glanced over what remained of my regular Italian with cheese and asked, “How many times a night do you say that?”

She groaned. “About thirty thousand.”

It’s the subs that keep the audience coming back—25 million customers and counting. These aren’t hoagies or grinders or those skinny, floppy things served at Subway. These are sub sandwiches, layered and stacked and stuffed a la Dagwood. A half is the size of a whole at any other joint, and all are served on bread delivered fresh up to a dozen times a day from the Italian bakery across the street.

Bestsellers are the regular Italian and the cheese steak, but any of the other 17 on the menu will leave your belly happy, too. All are constructed in assembly-line fashion by eight hard-working guys under the glow of ever-changing numbers on the “Now Serving” sign. They don’t even attempt to offer the subs anything but open-faced, with cold cuts spilling out all sides. Perhaps that’s why every customer’s mouth waters the minute they step inside the shop. The smell of 47 years’ worth of delicious salami permeates the place.

If you somehow can save room for dessert, don’t think about tiramisu or crème brulee. Behind the counter, stacked in boxes, are Tastykakes (next to the Bunn-O-Matic five-burner coffeemaker). They help maintain The White House Sub Shop’s personality, which is not unlike that of a waitress named Pearl who still wears sparkly blue eye shadow and a 1950s bouffant, the kind of lady you feel guilty if you fail to visit, the kind of lady who always makes you smile.

So they come and smile—for the camera, that is. Bill Cosby. Frank Sinatra. Ben Affleck. Mr. T. Al Gore. Donnie and Marie Osmond. Bernie Mac. Darn near every Miss America who’s ever worn the crown. Almost all the photos were taken by the gang that runs The White House—many, in fact, show celebs with arms wrapped around the short-order cooks. It’s as if the stars are just as proud of the photos as the regular folks pictured with them.

The Beatles were a little different; they held their subs up for the camera in a boardwalk hotel room. Ellen Degeneres had her own ideas, too, and had her picture taken while making her own sub. The Donald? Well, he sent in a studio shot signed with a gold marker. His hair looks perfect.

A waitress who looked to be in her late 40s pointed out a black-and-white photo of Frankie Valli with a young blond girl on his knee. “That’s my daughter,” she said—and then pointed to the staccato allegro waitress near the cash register. “See how she’s grown up?”

I asked the mother if the stars still come, and she smiled broadly. “Danny DeVito, he’s not up yet, but he was just in. I waited on him,” she said.

She chuckled, and then added, “Heck, I wait on everybody. I never have to go anywhere to see anyone. They all come to me.”  ♦

                

You can, too, in Atlantic City, New Jersey. You’ll join the likes of Bob Hope, Whitney Houston, Dom Deluise, Maury Povich, Dick Van Patten, Jerry Lewis, Dick Clark, the lady who plays the mother on Everybody Loves Raymond…