They’re tasty but repetitive and expensive.
Ike’s Love and Sandwiches is a chain of sandwich shops that started in San Francisco in the mid-aughts and which has since expanded to over a hundred locations, mostly in the western US and Florida. They popularized sandwiches made with Dutch crunch bread, their garlic aioli based “dirty sauce” and sometimes unusual ingredient combinations. They opened a location in San Leandro in late 2023, and we’ve had them several times. Their sandwiches, while expensive, are substantia, good for a couple of meals and pretty tasty – though I feel they all taste pretty much the same. They do have plenty of vegetarian and vegan options featuring fake meats. Unfortunately, they’ve gone up on price, about 12% over six or seven months, though that’s true of restaurants in general.
It’s easy to order online and you can customize your sandwiches, but they don’t have a “make your own” sandwich starting from scratch – so if you want something plain, you have to find the closest sandwich to what you want and then ask them to hold whatever ingredients you don’t want.
The last sandwich I ordered was the Big Lee-bowski ($17), which comes with “all beef meatballs, bacon, mozzarella sticks, red pesto, ranch, habanero.” It’s tasty enough, but all the flavors and textures of the ingredients blend together into one. At almost 1900 calories, it’s just not worth it – though one sandwich is definitely large enough for two meals.
I have tried several sandwiches by now, though most of them seem to taste very similar – I’m guessing it’s the dirty sauce. My favorite is the Hollywould’s SF Cheesesteak ($14.50), which comes with beef slices, mushrooms, provolone cheese and dirty sauce. I loved it the first time I ordered it, it had plenty of mushrooms and I really like mushrooms, and I enjoyed the dirty sauce. I may try it again without the sauce, now that I’ve grown tired of it.
I’ve also had the Ike’s ($16), which comes with pastrami, gouda, purple slaw and “mack sauce”. It was good, if unremarkable. I don’t think I can remember the sauce being any different than the others.
I had the Nacho Boy Supreme ($17) once, which comes with roast beef, bacon, mushrooms, avocado and Swiss cheese – it was fine, given that the predominant flavors are mushroom and sauce, I prefer the Hollywould’s SF Cheesesteak which is cheaper and has fewer calories.
Finally, I had the Damon Bruce ($17) and was disappointed by it. This sandwich comes with steak, onion rings, provolone and steak sauce. It tasted like all the other sandwiches, however, and the onion rings were nowhere to be found. OK, I did find them once I opened the sandwich and looked for them, but they are basically crushed with all the other ingredients, and they don’t really offer anything but moisture to the sandwich.
In all, as I said above, I feel all the sandwiches pretty much taste the same.
My husband has often had the Jaymee Sirewich ($13.50), a sandwich with fried chicken, pepper jack, yellow BBQ sauce and ranch. When I asked him why he prefers it, his answer is a simple “it tastes good.” He’s trying to watch calories now, so he had something without fried chicken last time he went. He liked it, whatever it was, but can’t recall what he ordered. Not surprising given that, as I said, all the sandwiches taste the same.
My youngest daughter likes her sandwiches plain, all she wants is bread, roast beef, cheese, lettuce and the dirty sauce. So we order her the Dirty Reuben ($16) and substract the purple slaw. She does like it, more than other roast beef sandwiches, a fact she attributes to the dirty sauce (apparently, unlike me, she’s not gotten tired of it).
My oldest daughter usually goes for the Helen Keller ($17), which comes with vegan steak, American cheese, onion rings and BBQ sauce, though last time she got the Jaymeetless ($14.5) with vegan fried chicken, pepper jack, yellow BBQ sauce and ranch. Like me, she feels all of Ike’s sandwiches pretty much taste the same. Like me, she orders them because my husband likes them and he’s going there anyway, but wouldn’t order one otherwise.
My husband, though, does like the sandwiches and finds Ike’s convenient. That said, maybe next time I’ll skip ordering a sandwich for myself.
Ike's Love and Sandwiches
155 Parrott St
San Leandro, CA
(341) 344-4201
M - Su 10 AM - 9 PM
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