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Photos courtesy of LeAnn Wood.
The day Christine Campbell Elmore bought Ousler Sandwiches from Dana Ousler. Elmore’s descendants run the business today.
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Photos courtesy of LeAnn Wood.
Jaynie Elmore Tuck, Bill Elmore and Christine Campbell Elmore at Ousler Sandwiches’ 42nd Street location around 1980.
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It’s all about the family at Ousler Sandwiches.
Dana Ousler created the business in 1915, and, at more than 100 years old, it has survived two pandemics, technological advancements and physical location changes. So what’s the secret to its success?
“My grandmother always said, ‘If you make a great product at a great price, you will always stay in business.’ and I’m still doing what she told me,” owner LeAnn Wood said.
Wood fondly recalls the passion that her grandmother, Christine Campbell Elmore, had for the business and passed down through the generations.
“She went to work for him [Ousler] in 1930 when she was just 15 years old,” Wood said. “She worked for him for many years before she bought the business from him in 1953.”
Wood said her grandmother was instrumental in the business’s success, not just in making sandwiches but also running the shop and taking orders. Everyone currently working at Ousler Sandwiches is a member of the Elmore family.
Wood said Ousler saw a need in the area in 1915 and wanted to fill it. The business is older than refrigeration, so there was a desire for fresh sandwiches that could be replenished daily. The community and surrounding businesses responded positively to the new opportunity and Ousler Sandwiches was born.
Ousler’s sandwiches became a staple of the community, and at one point, he even had a contract with the government to supply food for soldiers in World War II.
“When we were in Avondale, we had food trucks. We had food trucks before food trucks were cool. When we moved to our current location in 2005, the tea or party sandwiches became the main thing, and the ‘gas station’ sandwiches became the side gig. They [our party sandwiches] are useful for so many things. We keep on doing the party cuts, and everyone seems to like them,” Wood said.
She said their business model was already in place to survive a pandemic, and they “tightened their belts” and shortened their hours to combat the business slow-down during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We don’t make anything we don’t need,” Wood said. “We only make what people order, and a lot of people were still ordering because we were already a to-go business, so we were kind of built for this pandemic, honestly. We knew that if we were very purposeful in our making, we would make it.”
She said they rarely throw away anything because they try to make only what they will use daily. This commitment to low waste has helped their business thrive over the years.
So what’s currently selling the best at Ousler Sandwiches?
“Our chicken salad is our number one seller,” she said. “We make twice as much of that as anything else that we do. Our next best seller is pimento cheese. Our third best-seller, believe it or not, is cream cheese and olives. That’s a really old southern recipe. Even if you don’t like green olives, you’ll convert over because the cream cheese kind of cuts the bitterness of the olives.”
The opportunity recently arose for Ousler Sandwiches to move locations, and Wood said that their customers begged them to stay close to where they are now. When the location at Lane Parke became available, Wood said it happened at just the perfect moment for their business.
“We are going to remain take-out only,” she said. “Our space is shrinking, but production-wise, I think it’s going to grow. We expect our lunch sandwiches and our boxed lunches will be very popular over there because we’re at a good price point. There are a lot of good things coming for us.”
The new location is set to open in May. For more information, visit ouslers.com.
