The Atomic Sandwich

Eveready Printing dates back to 1928.  For this account I will only harken back to the mid 1950s.

My father Charlie Stevens and I often used to come to Eveready on Saturday.  I came to help him. My job was to clean up... basically to sweep the shop and take out the trash. He worked on paperwork and paying bills and together we did a little paste up work, that sort of thing, to finish up the week.

As the day wound on closer to lunchtime I got hungrier and hungrier and once in a while, not every time, as a special treat, my Dad  would order an Atomic Sandwich from Melfi's.

Melfi's in the 1950s

Melfi's was a wonderful Italian restaurant a couple of blocks up from Eveready on Division Street. Melfi’s was probably the source of some of the first pizza in Nashville… although there was a little place down in the Arcade which was one of the very first pizza places in Nashville…a guy actually threw the pizza pie dough up in the air, and it featured a very authentic oregano/basil base to the tomato sauce.  Anyway, if my dad was feeling effusive and generous, he would order an Atomic Sandwich for our lunch.

The Atomic Sandwich was a true Italian work of art, consisting of home-baked Italian bread, probably 18 inches long and, as I remember it, tender yet crusty, sweet and fresh… then inside the sandwich were layers and layers of Italian meats and cheeses, a homemade mayonnaise sauce, sweet peppers, onions, lettuce, tomatoes and anchovies. The masterpiece came wrapped in aluminum foil with black olives on toothpicks as eyes and a pepperoncini pepper as a tail.  Half a sandwich, or probably less than half for me, with a Coke was and entire meal.

This special lunch made my work absolutely worth it. I cleaned the shop using that absorbent granular sweeping substance you throw on floors and then sweep... it takes up all the dirt. Then you sweep all the dirt plus granules into a pile and use a dustpan and pick up the debris and throw it away. I also emptied all the trash cans. My dad taught me to work and I loved it!  Later I learned paste up, darkroom work and all the pre-press steps necessary to get a job ready for making metal plates and printing.

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