The Biz Beat: San Jose’s Sourdough Eatery offers art on the side

Nestled in a 100-year-old former residence, Sourdough Eatery in San Jose feels like a roadside attraction on Route 66. Part delicatessen, part art gallery and part living history museum, it is a tribute to owner Barbara Lenhart.

Every visible wall is covered with Lenhart’s oil portraits of celebrities, politicians and glamor girls. Lenhart sits at the register in front of a self-portrait of her modeling the blue champagne gown designed by Edith Head for Grace Kelly’s 1955 Academy Award acceptance speech. Lenhart donned the gown herself, as Milton Berle’s date in the 1966 film “The Oscar.”

“I thought the dress deserved a portrait on its own,” she told San José Spotlight. “I’ve been told that it is in a museum in Monaco. In those days, I was lucky enough to fit into it. I’m not 100% sure I could now.”

A natural raconteur, Lenhart shares stories about her father cooking at Hollywood’s Brown Derby, her study of art and her three years in Paris dancing and singing at the Folies Bergère. There she met her late husband Michael, an importer and exporter of haute couture. 

The couple settled in the South Bay in the late 1970s and opened their own clothing store. In 1978, after being displaced twice by development, they drove past the current Sourdough Eatery location on North First Street on their way to the courthouse in search of relief.

“We’d been pushed out of two places and weren’t happy about it,” Lenhart said. “This place had just gone up for sale. We said, ‘This is just what we’ve been looking for.'”

Being across the street from the former City Hall and surrounded by attorneys’ offices, they settled on the sandwich shop concept, catering to the lunchtime crowd with the same hours they maintain today: 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Then, as now, the operation is built for speed.

There is a fixed menu of 20 sandwiches displayed on worn placards above the deli counter, each listing the types of meats or cheeses used, most noting some variation of “cooked and sliced by owners.”

There is also the “no” sign: “We do not make custom-made sandwiches; we make what is on the menu only.”

“Some of our customers only have half an hour to pick up their lunch and get back to their office, so time is really the essence,” Lenhart said. “We are as expeditious as possible so they can have the experience and, hopefully, still eat their sandwich while it’s warm.”

It is a business model resistant to change, even following Michael’s death in 2018. According to Lenhart, only three or four menu items have been swapped out since Sourdough Eatery opened. The shop’s sole employee besides Lenhart, sandwich maker Gelacio Sanchez, was hired in 1992 at age 18.

“He’s my right-hand man,” Lenhart said. “And he is such a perfectionist. He really doesn’t even like it when we have extra help because he says then he has to watch them as to what they’re putting in the sandwiches as well as doing his own.”

There is an almost unconscious, but synchronous flow between Lenhart and Sanchez that keeps the sandwiches coming out from behind the counter. She roasts the meat and bakes the bread, keeping the loaves rolling out every five or 10 minutes as needed, purely by instinct.

“I don’t have a clock on it,” she said. “I don’t believe in working by the clock. It’s by taste, smell and timing. I want my people to always have fresh bread so they can enjoy a warm sandwich for their lunch. That is the cornerstone of what we do.”

Keeping pace with orders, Sanchez treats each individual sandwich with handcrafted care. The meat and bread are sliced to order, and the vegetables are never prepped ahead of time. 

“I slice the veggies when a sandwich is ordered, because I like them to be crunchy,” Sanchez told San José Spotlight. “They have a special flavor when you slice them in front of the customer — they have to be fresh. If you slice them before, they get a different taste, and we are very particular about that stuff.”

Sanchez favors No. 17, a spicy turkey sandwich with salami and Swiss cheese. He said all of the spices are blended in-house to give the sandwich a unique flavor. Lenhart’s favorite is No. 3, a thin-sliced white-meat roasted turkey sandwich with Swiss cheese. 

“It is the easiest one to make, but any combination of meat and cheese is delicious when paired with our bread,” she said. “I do credit my longevity to the fact that I eat really well because I eat here every day, and I know the food is really first class with no preservatives.”

Consider No. 15: a sliced white-meat turkey and pastrami sandwich. Sanchez builds the sandwich from the bottom up — the chopped lettuce, tomatoes and onions serve as a base, then are topped with Swiss cheese and generously piled with meat.  

It measures an impressive 3 inches thick, 4 inches across and 8 inches long. (“Oh, heck,” Lenhart said, “I’ve been telling people it’s 6 inches.”) And all the flavors are there: the lightly seasoned turkey, the lean pastrami, the sparklingly fresh veggies and the crisp-crusted, still-warm bread. 

Customer Brianna Ieong favors the tuna salad sandwich, saying it might be one of the best she’s ever had.

“I love the vibe of the place,” she told San José Spotlight. “The sourdough is a lot better quality than other places that I’ve been to. I also like the size of the sandwich. It’s a really good price point for what you’re getting. The bread is so soft, and it’s freshly baked. It’s still really yummy.”

While Lenhart will not disclose how old she is — “Age is just a number and mine is unlisted” — she still thrives on working five days a week, even after 48 years. 

“I’ve had the most wonderful life,” she told San José Spotlight. “I am happy to have been a part of this community. People think of our shop as a destination and like to show it off. They know our food is consistently the best we can provide, and I’m very proud of that.”

Contact Robert Eliason at [email protected].

Editor’s Note: The Biz Beat is a series highlighting local small businesses and restaurants in Silicon Valley. Know a business you’d like to see featured? Let us know at [email protected].