Ike`s Place

2 Bite-Size Eateries Too Popular for Their Neighbors’ Good

Laura Morton for The New York Times

The owner of Ike’s Place, Ike Shehadeh, brought a sandwich to Derek Chang. The line has become a neighborhood fixture.

It is the sandwich that ate the neighborhood.



This article is part of our expanded Bay Area coverage.

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Ike’s Place, a tiny doorway eatery in San Francisco’s Castro village, has become such a foodie sensation that it has reached the pinnacle of Bay Area success: protest.

With up to 1,200 customers on sunny weekend days, Ike’s has faced a backlash from neighbors. The once-quiet block on 16th Street is fed up with patrons who wait up to two hours for their chance to taste what they believe is nirvana between two slices of bread. In response to complaints, Ike’s reduced its hours starting this month it closes at 7 p.m.

“The only time we’re not busy is when we’re not open,” said Ike Shehadeh, the owner.

On one level, what has happened to Ike’s is emblematic of local attitudes it has often been said that San Francisco has never met a protest it didn’t like. But Nimby over a sandwich could be a new low.

A deeper look reveals an evolving trend in the local restaurant scene in which select homegrown favorites have made the leap from mere phenomena into the realm of obsession, leading to swarms of foodies who sometimes disregard common manners to sate their cravings. Fueled by the Internet, the trend is also a citizen uprising that undermines the power of food-critic gatekeepers.

What pushed Ike’s into this stratosphere is a combination of mouthful and myth. Those in line say, “It’s the best sandwich I’ve ever eaten.” The bread is baked to order, smothered in garlicky “dirty sauce,” and the 183 different sandwiches some secret and available only to insiders have whimsical names like the Backstabber (chicken with Caesar dressing) and the Do You Smell What Barack Is Cooking (thinly sliced rib-eye), both $7.97.