Sandwich selection:
The deli features 100 tasty choices. (Photo by Jessica M. Garrett, Special to SunSpot)
At Catonsville's Taneytown Deli, the staff carefully layers a plethora of meats, cheeses, toppings and condiments on the bread of your choice until their creation is a work of "tasteful" art. Your sandwich becomes a mouth-watering Leaning Tower of Pisa on white, pumpernickel or rye, depending on your preference.
As Taneytown customer Tracy Williams says, "I don't know if words can do it justice. Taneytown must be experienced with the mouth, not with the eyes or ears."
The reason everything is so delicious? Manager Gary Teegardin attributes the success of his sandwiches, subs and salads to the fact that they're prepared on the spot. "All our products are homemade," he says. "Nothing is a bought product. ... We make a different soup from scratch everyday." Also concocted from a special Taneytown recipe are their best-selling shrimp and chicken salads, which he calls "the best ... in Baltimore" -- and after trying a sample, you'll be hard-pressed to disagree.
Taneytown didn't always dabble in the deli trade. In 1947, it was Jenkins' Poultry Farm, a slaughterhouse that bought chickens, turkeys and geese from Taneytown, Md., dressed them and sold them. Then, after a stint as a wholesale/retail sandwich company that stocked vending machines with "probably about 3,000 sandwiches a day," according to Teegardin, Taneytown became a deli/catering venue in 1982. A dine-in area that seats about 32 patrons was added onto the relatively small front-counter section five years ago.
The hours of operation are a bit strange, as Taneytown opens and closes early -- 6 a.m.-3 p.m. Monday to Friday and 6 a.m.- p.m. on Saturday. (It is closed Sundays.) But as soon as Taneytown shuts its doors to community customers, it begins filling catering orders.
The menu features close to 100 sandwiches and a sense of humor. In restaurant terms, "eighty-six" refers to the situation when an establishment runs out of a particular item, and Taneytown's No. 86 sandwich is listed as "no meat, no cheese, no bacon, no lettuce, no tomato, no mayonnaise." The price? A reasonable $0.00.
An area of controversy for locals is the pronunciation of the deli's name. Is it "Taneytown" with a long A or "Tawneytown?" "It's Taneytown to me, because ... when I was in school, T-A-N-E-Y was Taney," says Teegardin, picking a side. "And I really believe Tawney [comes from] the Baltimore accent -- and I'm originally from Indiana. I don't want to be associated with Tawneytown, Md., so I've always called it Taneytown to be controversial."
But what's in a name? The food is the important thing, and any way you slice them, these sandwiches hit the spot.
