The Sauce That Transforms Roast Beef Sandwiches Into A Boston Delicacy

You can get a great roast beef sandwich in a lot of places. The details that give many of these regional varieties their sense of place are often ancillary to the meat. A roast beef sandwich topped with giardiniera is found in, or at least influenced by, Chicago, for example. It's also fair to assume that roast beef accompanied by, or even soaked in, jus is the French dip popularized by Los Angeles. Slather a roast beef sandwich with James River barbecue sauce instead, and that's a nod to Boston.

A North Shore roast beef sandwich is tethered to, of course, the North Shore of Boston. It's often made with thinly sliced roast beef, American cheese, mayonnaise, and, most importantly, somewhat sweet, tangy, thinish James River barbecue sauce. This particular sauce-and-dairy trio is called a "three-way." While the American cheese can have any provenance, and plenty of people can't tell the difference between the popular Cain's mayo and other kinds, a North Shore beef specifically calls for James River barbecue sauce. That's the kind used at Kelly's, which is credited with creating the sandwich in Massachusetts' Revere Beach in 1951, and you see James River cited by name in an abundance of other references to the sandwich. That specificity also helps you create an especially convincing North Shore roast beef sandwich of your own.

Depending on where you are in the world, James River may not appear among the standard barbecue sauces in your grocery store. But that's what the internet is for, and you can find it online for around $9 a bottle. It's generally crowd-pleasing enough that folks who haven't had James River barbecue sauce should be plenty happy, while those who have should be satisfied that it's the real deal when joined with a three-way's other ingredients.

Sauce acquired, you need to source, or make, thinly sliced beef, and arrange it with the cheese and mayo on what's typically a bun (versus, say, a hoagie roll). Top round is one of the best cuts you can use for roast beef sandwiches, and it's also what Kelly's uses, so you can roast one of those. Kelly's also uses a sesame seed bun and white American cheese. A three-way is also built from the bottom up at Kelly's, adding the beef, then the sauce, then the cheese, and finally the mayo to the top bun — should you wish to truly approximate the generally accepted North Shore roast beef sandwich originator.