SWAMPSCOTT — When Sam Lena started the Lena’s sandwich shop business 75 years ago, his wife, Emma, had some words of advice: “Make every sandwich like you were going to eat it yourself.”
For the Lena family, that still means making a sandwich with high-quality ingredients, especially soft bread that’s cut “the right way,” as Tony Lena would say.
“Lena’s” was founded in 1945 by Sam Lena, whose son, Tony, took over the business and changed the name to “Tony Lena’s” in 1973. A third generation of Lenas, sisters Tammy Lena Chambers and Jennifer Lena Venuti, have run Tony Lena’s Sandwich Shop, 88 Cherry St., since 1991.
Monday, Lena and his daughters reflected on their decades of working at a “mom-and-pop shop” that doesn’t advertise and relies on good ingredients and word-of-mouth to thrive.
“We’ve always had high-quality everything, and with everything we did,” Lena said.
“All the Lenas use the same bread. It’s a soft, French roll,” he said.
The Lenas have always used the same bread, all the way back to 1945, and consider it critical to their success. In the past, the supplier was Columbus Baking Co. in Beverly until it burned down. Now, it’s Joe Lauranzano Bread Products in Salem.
But despite some changes in name and location, the Lenas bread has always come from the same local Lauranzano family.
“People always tell us, ‘You guys have the freshest bread,'” Venuti said. “It’s always been important. If you don’t have good bread it’s not going to taste the same.”
Lena said the “soft bread” stands out for its texture compared to the breads many other submarine sandwich shops use.
But the bread, and sandwich as a whole, also has to be prepared properly to keep customers coming back.
“You want me to tell another secret?” Lena asked.
“We cut the bread through,” he said, using his hands to demonstrate a sub being cut the whole way through, resulting in two completely separate sandwich pieces, rather than a sub roll that is partially cut with a slit like a hot dog bun.
It’s the inferior submarine sandwich that isn’t cut all the way through, Lena insists, with a messy pile of ingredients sitting on a piece of bread that’s bound to get soggy or collapse. A proper sub should be fully cut, and built and held like any other type of sandwich.
The preparation of vegetables is important too. Again, it shouldn’t get too messy.
“And we slice the vegetables, never dice the vegetables,” Chambers said.
Chambers and Venuti will be celebrating the 30th anniversary of running the business as sisters next March. Chambers’ daughter, Madison, and Venuti’s son, A.J., work part-time at the business, taking shifts in the summer when they are out of school.
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” Venuti said.
The Lenas deliberately don’t advertise their store. They say it’s simply because they don’t need to. According to Venuti, about 70 percent of the store’s business is from returning customers.
The older Lena said he sees an increase in chain submarine sandwich shops like Firehouse Subs and Jersey Mike’s, but he is confident the business will continue to do well as his daughters enter their third decade of ownership.
“I didn’t pass the torch, they took the torch,” Lena said.
Lena himself, when he took over the business, added the logo of a mustached man’s face, based on his college roommate from Syracuse University. He also came up with some slogans: “If you don’t see the face, you’re in the wrong place,” and, “Tony Lena’s makes you glad you’re hungry.”
Lena said the business, no matter which Lena is running it, has always had some rules. Increase prices, rather then downgrade the quantity or quality of ingredients in the sandwiches.
And, give good deals, like “buy-one-get-one-free,” on special occasions, rather than discounts.
“It’s always good food and good quality all the time,” Lena said.
“It’s the personality you see, it’s the friendship,” he said, looking at his two daughters behind the small store’s counter.
Chambers and Venuti have had their own strategy as well when it comes to running the business. They cook team dinners for the local high school sports teams, and donate gift certificates and cater at car shows and events like the Swampscott Strawberry Festival in town.
Venuti said one football season, a year when her son was playing for Swampscott High, Tony Lena’s provided meals for 10 of the team’s 12 dinners.
“There’s not a lot of mom-and-pop shops out there,” Venuti said. “We grew up in Swampscott, our kids are from Swampscott… We make the preschool pizzas every Friday.”
The menu has occasionally added items, like grilled chicken kabobs, to reflect food trends, but for the most part it has remained the same. Chambers and Venuti said the store is special because it is always willing to make something a customer requests, even if it’s not a menu. Venuti takes pictures of some of the quirkier things, like an eggplant salad, a heart-shaped pizza for Valentine’s Day and a “pickle pizza.”
“It’s always been fun,” Venuti said. “We grew up working for my dad, and we basically lived at Lena’s. It was fun and our friends worked with us.”
“What adds to the fun is our customers are also our friends,” Chambers added.
