I was on the phone with the longtime industry vet for an interview about the rebranding of Bodega, his sandwich-centric Sunnyside eatery, to Odie B's when he brought up one of my favorite food topics: Publix sub sandwiches — affectionately known as Pub subs.
If you've ever lived or spent time in the Southeast, it's likely that you've eaten a Publix sub — and that you're one of the many fans of the grocery store chain's deli sandwiches.
Blauvelt developed an affinity for creating fun, elevated takes on sandwiches while living in Aruba for two years, during which he helped an American couple open a restaurant. He brought that excitement back to Denver and debuted Bodega at 2651 West 38th Avenue two years ago.
Even while dealing with the name change and working to open a second Odie B's in RiNo, Blauvelt found time to nerd out about sandwiches, which is how he and I ended up getting into a deep conversation about my love for the Pub subs I regularly ate while living in Gainesville, Florida, during middle and high school.
The chicken tender sub, in particular, has a cult following — there was once even an account on X dedicated to letting fans know when it was on sale, until the site went dark after the store objected (perhaps the only questionable move I've ever heard of from Publix, which is generally beloved).
"What makes them so special?" Blauvelt wanted to know, so he asked a friend who planned to fly to Denver from the Southeast to bring him one.
When that plan fell through, Blauvelt came up with an alternate idea.
Four hours in Nashville
"Would you be down to fly to Nashville for the day with me to go to Publix?" he asked.It was an adventure I couldn't pass up. "Fuck, yes," was my immediate reply. Blauvelt had looked into the cheapest cities with Publix locations to fly to, and Nashville was only about $100 round-trip.
A few weeks later, we arrived at Denver International Airport around 6:30 a.m. and boarded a Frontier flight to Music City, arriving just after 11 a.m. local time. After securing a rental car, we set off to pack in as much food research as we could over the next few hours.
We hit up the downtown food hall outpost of Prince's Hot Chicken — and randomly ran into Amber Rose fresh from the Republican National Convention — and tried the Crustburger at Sean Brock's fast-food concept Joyland, then took a few unsuccessful detours before finally focusing on the main event.
Publix is well-loved for many reasons, including its high-quality store-brand items (I always grab bottles of its lemonade and iced tea to pair with my sub haul), generally clean and well-organized atmosphere and, most important, its famously friendly staff.
People really, truly seem to like working there, which translates to excellent customer service. That's one of the things I mentioned to Blauvelt as we drove closer to his first-ever Publix visit and I worried that I'd way over-hyped this grocery-store sandwich.
But the staff at the Hill Center Greenwood Publix in Nashville totally delivered on that famous customer service. And our deli guy, John, deserves a major shoutout.
As we sat outside at one of the tables in front of the store, Blauvelt bit into his first Publix sub. "Pretty good," he said, nodding. "It's pretty good."
Everyone orders their Publix sub differently. I like cheddar cheese, mayo (which the store always slathers on generously), lettuce, tomato, banana peppers, extra Boar's Head pickles and onion on my chicken tender sub. My other go-to is a Boar's Head Salsalito Turkey sub with provolone — yes, you can request any Boar's Head product on your sub and the staff will slice some fresh for you.
When I ordered two subs to take home on the plane, John tipped us off to a technique he'd learned: chopping the wetter ingredients and adding those on top of the lettuce to keep the bread from getting too soggy in transit — a smart technique that worked pretty well.
We made it back to the Nashville airport around 3:30 p.m. It felt a bit like the entire experience had been a daydream when I arrived home in Denver around 8 p.m. that night, but the subs brought me back to reality. They'd survived their journey relatively intact...and were delicious.
Publix sub special at Odie B's
This week, you can order Odie B's take on the Publix chicken tender sub. It will be available Wednesday, September 11, and Thursday, September 12, during the eatery's regular hours (8 a.m. to 3 p.m.) and during the September 13 edition of its recently launched Friday burger night from 5 to 8 p.m. It'll be loaded with hand-battered chicken tenders, chopped just like they do it at the Publix counter, plus a healthy slather of mayo, green chile honey mustard and housemade garlic pickle chips, plus black olives, banana peppers and onions, chopped as an homage to John in Nashville.
It's a special that Publix fans won't want to miss, but just in case you do...
How to re-create a Publix chicken tender sub in Denver at home
I've lived in Denver for twenty years now and rarely return to the Southeast, so I've only had maybe six Publix subs since leaving Florida (not including the six or so I've brought back on planes for others, resulting in some very pickle juice-filled TSA encounters).I have, however, thought a lot about what makes them so good. You can get Boar's Head meats and sliced cheese here. The fresh veggies are simple enough to duplicate, too.
The hard-to-duplicate parts are the bread, the pickles and the tenders themselves.
It's widely known that Publix offers two types of pickles — brighter-green dill pickle slices and Boar's Head pickle chips. For years, I searched for those Boar's Head pickles in Colorado grocery stores, often finding spears or the wrong chips (get outta here, bread and butter!).
But now the Boar's Head Kosher Dill chips have been located — at the Capitol Hill King Soopers, at 1155 East Ninth Avenue (I've checked a few others with no luck...).
With those on hand, I turned to the tenders. I've yet to find an exact dupe for the golden beauties at Publix, but my current reigning favorite plain tender in Denver is at Cluck on South Broadway. While its coating is a bit different and not nearly as golden, its seasonings are pretty on point. I picked up an order of six and set off on a bread mission.
Publix sub rolls come in several varieties, but I always order the white bread — so that's what I was looking to replicate. It's a soft and chewy roll that's not crusty but still holds toppings like a champ and has a coating of cornmeal on the bottom.
I've eaten a lot of sandwiches in Denver over the years and, surprisingly, Jersey Mike's offers the most similar experience to a Publix. So I hit up the outpost at 555 Broadway. "Just bread?" the employees wondered. "No, here we make the whole sandwich!"
After giving me a good-natured hard time, they laid out eight rolls so I could pick my favorite two, then they gave them to me on the house with one request: "Let us know how the sandwich experiment goes!"
It went really well. The resulting sub, loaded with all my go-to veggies plus plenty of Duke's mayo, was a damn satisfying Publix knock-off. Not perfect, sure — that Jersey Mike's bread has the right texture, but the flavor is still slightly off.
Short of finding a former Publix baker who is willing to spill some secrets, though, it's a satisfying Pub sub fix — no plane ticket needed.
