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Calling all Paly, Gunn and Castilleja students: Ike Shehadeh, owner of popular Bay Area sandwich purveyor Ike’s Place, wants local high schoolers to send him their best ideas for sandwich creations, and the winning combinations from each school will make it onto the menu at his forthcoming downtown Palo Alto shop.
Ike’s, which started in San Francisco and has since steadily expanded throughout the Bay Area, Southern California and beyond, is known for its over-the-top combinations of ingredients, extensive menus and eclectic mix of sandwich names (Pastrami Charmed Life, anyone?).
At the former Ike’s Place on Stanford University’s campus, the "Herbert Hoover" came with ham, bacon, American cheese, mozzarella sticks, lettuce, tomato, onions, pickles, banana peppers and a double heaping of Ike’s "dirty sauce." Photo by Veronica Weber/Palo Alto Weekly.
Students can send their ideas directly to Shehadeh via Facebook message at facebook.com/tobelikeike.
Once the contest is over, there will be taste tests with each school where Shehadeh himself will make the top entries, and tasters (which will include students, if they want to, Shehadeh said) will choose a winner for each school.
They’ll go on the menu of the new Palo Alto location once it opens at 401 Lytton Ave., which could be soon, despite many months of delays. Shehadeh said an inspection is scheduled for the end of the month and if all goes well, he’ll open soon after that.
Since the controversial exit of Ike’s Place from Stanford University in 2014, he managed to open a grab-and-go Ike’s Place, or "Ike’s Press," this spring. While his contract there is temporary, it was recently extended through the end of the year.
The menu has also expanded since the Stanford outpost first opened in April and was serving a limited selection of cold, pre-made sandwiches. There are now more than 25 sandwiches on the menu, both toasted and cold, and they’re allowing customers to customize with add-on ingredients, Shehadeh said. Stanford is also now serving a new Ike’s concept: flatbread dutch-crunch pizzas.