In this story

Primanti Bros. began in Pittsburgh’s Strip District in 1933 and built its reputation on a single idea: the french fries and coleslaw go inside the sandwich. The original storefront stands at 18th and Smallman streets, and the company’s official site opens its history with a line that sets the tone: “The First Primanti Bros. Restaurant wasn’t a restaurant at all. It was a cart.” Pittsburgh Magazine, the Post-Gazette and several national food sites have since told the same story, and most of the details match.

Video: The Story Behind The Primanti Bros. Sandwich | Primanti Bros.

A cart, then a storefront

Joe Primanti started out selling sandwiches from a small cart in the Strip District during the Great Depression. The company says strong sales in 1933 let him open a storefront that served truck drivers and shift workers at all hours. Pittsburgh Magazine adds that he teamed up with his brothers and opened the storefront at 18th and Smallman. The Post-Gazette’s The Digs column names the brothers as Dick and Stanley and adds their nephew, John DePriter, who joined the business right away.

Sources differ slightly on the order of events. The company’s page and Pittsburgh Magazine have the cart first and the storefront following, while Tasting Table says the cart and a storefront both opened in 1933. None of the fetched pages gives an exact date for the cart.

The early customers came from the Strip District’s own trade. The Post-Gazette says the restaurant first served a late-night crowd, beginning with workers who unloaded produce in the Strip, and quotes its own 1970s description of the clientele as “night hawks from all walks of life.” WPXI reports that the first store ran from 3 a.m. to 3 p.m., and the station’s profile gives the address of the original shop as 46 18th St. in the Strip District.

A basket of fresh-cut french fries lifted from hot oil above a deep fryer in a restaurant kitchen.

The potatoes on the grill

WPXI says the Almost Famous sandwich was born in that first storefront, open from 3 a.m. to 3 p.m. each day, and those hours match the late-night and early-morning trade of produce workers and drivers that the Post-Gazette describes.

The sandwich’s defining feature came from a delivery. The company’s history credits Joe’s nephew, John DiPriter, with the account: a driver brought a load of potatoes to the restaurant one winter, DiPriter fried them on the grill, and customers asked for some. The company’s longer story page calls the tale part memory and part lore. DiPriter’s recollection, as quoted there, runs: “I fried the potatoes on our grill and they looked pretty good.”

Other outlets tell it with small variations. Pittsburgh Magazine and the Post-Gazette say the potatoes were fried to check whether they were frozen. The Ottawa Citizen’s account has a trucker with a load of unsellable potatoes offering them to Joe Primanti with the suggestion to “Put ’em on a sandwich!” Positively Pittsburgh, for its part, credits cousin Joe DiPriter and says the fries were added a few years after 1933. Even the spelling of the name moves between DePriter and DiPriter from one source to the next.

The core of the tale does not change. A truck, some potatoes, a hot grill and a customer who wanted them on the bread.

What goes in the sandwich

Food Republic describes the sandwich as built on soft Italian bread, which it distinguishes from French bread and calls “pillowy soft.” Meat and cheese form the base, and fresh-cut fries, sweet-and-sour coleslaw and sliced tomato go inside with them. Food Republic notes that the vinegar-based slaw’s tang balances the fried potatoes, the meat and the cheese, and that the sandwiches arrive on a sheet of paper in place of a plate.

Tasting Table lists the same arrangement more specifically: two slices of fresh Italian bread, house-made coleslaw, tomatoes, french fries, a meat of choice and melted provolone. Its list of meats includes hamburger patty, salami, capicola, ham, roast beef, tuna, fried baloney and kielbasa. Food Republic’s list runs differently, naming turkey, pastrami, corned beef, fried eggs, fried fish and a black bean patty, which suggests that menus have changed by location and over time.

The Almost Famous sandwich is the house name. WPXI describes it as two thick slices of Italian bread with beef or pork, cheese, coleslaw and fries, and says the fries and slaw “go right onto the sandwich.” The same article lists wings, pizza, hamburgers and fish sandwiches among the other items, depending on the location. Food Republic names the Pitts-burger and Cheese, with a seasoned ground beef patty, as the second-best seller.

Presentation is part of the identity. Tasting Table reports that at the original location the sandwiches are wrapped in butcher paper instead of arriving on a plate. Food Republic describes them landing on a sheet of paper over a disposable table protector, and adds a detail that suits the restaurant’s working-class roots: the top seller is Iron City beer, which does not appear on the menu.

Why it was built to be eaten with one hand

Food Republic says the sandwiches were designed for blue-collar workers who needed a filling meal they could eat quickly, and that truck drivers in the Strip District could finish a full meal with one hand because the fries sit inside. The company’s own story page makes the same point, saying the sandwich was an instant hit because drivers could eat it with one hand and keep the other on the wheel.

The article calls the finished sandwich a giant, towering “beast” that can be squeezed into a bite-sized shape. It also quotes a Primanti Brothers video: “to hold an almost-famous Primanti Brothers sandwich in your hand is to hold history.”

Positively Pittsburgh reports another outgrowth. The Pittsburgh Salad, a salad topped with fries, grew out of the sandwich, and the same article says Primanti’s does not sell it, though it is popular elsewhere in the city. The piece also reports that the original location goes through 600 to 700 pounds of potatoes each day and that the sandwiches HBK (ham, bacon, kielbasa) and the Captain’s (roast beef, capicola, turkey) are named for Pittsburgh Penguins players and their line.

A bowl of vinegar coleslaw beside sliced tomatoes and provolone cheese on a paper-lined tray.

The 1970s sale and the growth since

Joe Primanti retired in the 1940s, according to WPXI, and his family ran the business until the 1970s. Then Jim Patrinos bought it and expanded it. Pittsburgh Magazine gives the buyer’s first name as Joe, so the sources differ on that detail. Positively Pittsburgh says Patrinos opened a second location near the University of Pittsburgh.

The original shop moved into round-the-clock service in time. The Positively Pittsburgh article says it is now open 24 hours, and Tasting Table puts the shift to 24-hour operation in the 1970s. The company’s page, however, says only that the storefront served customers at all hours, and does not state current opening times.

Counts of restaurants vary with the date of each article. The Post-Gazette’s 2014 column found 17 in the Pittsburgh area and three in Florida. WPXI in 2018 reported 27 in Pennsylvania, with others in Florida, Maryland, Ohio, West Virginia and Indiana. Tasting Table now reports about 40 restaurants across six states, while Food Republic in 2024 says five states. Pittsburgh Magazine adds that the exterior has changed a good deal but that the way sandwiches are made inside remains the same, and fries are still on the menu.

Press, rankings and ballparks

The restaurant has collected mentions that reach well beyond Pittsburgh. The Post-Gazette notes that ESPN ranked PNC Park the best ballpark in the country in 2010, partly because it sold Primanti’s sandwiches. It also records that the restaurant made the list in “1,000 Places to See Before You Die in the USA” and that the newspaper’s readers’ choice poll named its sandwiches the best in Pittsburgh several years in a row. Food Republic adds that the sandwich was featured on “The Drew Barrymore Show.”

Positively Pittsburgh’s piece quotes a manager, Toni Hagerty, who has worked at the original restaurant for 43 years, and says there is a location at each of the city’s three main sports venues, and WPXI’s list names PNC Park, Heinz Field and PPG Paints Arena among them.

Pittsburgh Magazine published its look at the restaurant on March 31, 2019, as part of a 50th-anniversary series on how the city has changed, and Tasting Table describes the brand as a Pittsburgh institution for almost 100 years. Food Republic, writing in 2024, puts the original Strip District location at more than 90 years old.

A brick wholesale street at dawn with a delivery truck and stacked produce crates on the pavement.

Location and ordering

The Strip District remains the original location. The company’s page lists a corporate address, the World Sandwich Headquarters, at 424 South 27th Street, Building 3, Suite 220, Pittsburgh, PA 15203, and sends visitors to the official site for a locations and menu search and for online ordering. Hours and menu details for individual restaurants were not available from the pages fetched for this post.

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