BHH (Before Hoagie Haven)

Those who were Princeton students many years ago may remember Aljon’s, a sub shop on Witherspoon Street just past the cemetery. Aljon’s made very decent sub sandwiches, but when Hoagie Haven opened in 1974, they really upped the game. Hoagie Haven’s subs were obviously superior. After a short while Aljon’s was long gone and little mourned.

In my era, Hoagie Haven did not make the fancy subs described in the PAW article. I was just a scrawny graduate student, so the offerings at the time were plenty for me. But I do remember one evening when a big athlete came in showing obvious dissatisfaction with the current offerings. Flummoxed, he came up with a modification of the current menu, his own creation: whole cheesesteak with double meat and double cheese. Little did I know that I was witnessing the primitive birth of the fancy menu items described in this article.