Collection: Philippe The Original

Philippe The Original is one of the oldest and best known restaurants in Southern California. Philippe’s was established in 1908 by Philippe Mathieu. One day in 1918, while making a sandwich, he inadvertently dropped the sliced french roll into the roasting pan filled with juice still hot from the oven. The patron said he would take the sandwich anyway and returned the next day with friends asking for more dipped sandwiches. And so was born the “French Dipped Sandwich,” so called either because of Mathieu’s French heritage, the French roll the sandwich is made on or because the customer’s name was French.  

The answer is lost to history.