After four decades and sandwiches like the "Mac Daddy" and the "Phat Veg," the Nassau Street staple rolls on.
By Kelly Corbett
For The Times of Trenton
PRINCETON -- Michael Maltabes is nothing if not flexible.
A customer wants chocolate on his cheesesteak? Done.
How about a honey mustard and hot sauce combination? Yeah, he'll do that too.
Maltabes, owner of Hoagie Haven, will even bottle it and give you some to take home.
Responding to customers is one of the reasons why the Nassau Street shop has continued to thrive for over four decades -- even helping to drive a top sandwich chain out of town in 2015.
Satisfying customers is Haven's main priority, he says. "It's their sub shop, it's their personal thing," says Maltabes, tailoring the menu to match any type of unique craving.
Customers will ask "Can you put this on my hoagie?" says Maltabes, motioning to the candy bars sold behind the counter.
"We'll put a Kit-Kat or a Snickers on it and call it a 'Chocolate Cheese Steak'," he says.
Order up a hoagie to see what all the fuss is about and behold the crafty hands of hoagie makers prepping the most gratifying of grub.
Hoagies jam-packed with chicken, mozzarella sticks, french fries, American cheese and slathered in Haven's famous Sanchez Sauce - and, yes, that's all one sandwich - have satisfied the adventurous stomachs of Princetonians since 1974.
In fact, all across the world, the 'Haven' name travels internationally as a photomontage of pleased sandwich-eaters sporting their orange and grey Haven-logo apparel climb the walls of the family-run business.
The Sanchez is their most in-demand munch, says Maltabes, one of Haven's three owners - along with brothers Niko and Costa Maltabes.
Earlier this year, as requested by customers, the secret recipe Sanchez Sauce, a blend of hot sauce and creamy honey mustard, started being bottled and marketed for sale in-store, and online, for a 17-ounce taste of Haven at home - the crowning condiment to anything fried, meaty or flavor-deprived.
Hoagie Haven waves Subway goodbye
Other Haven specialties include:
The "Mac Daddy," a bacon cheeseburger hoagie brimming with ooey-gooey Mac 'n' Cheese wedges, crispy fries and milked in Honey Mustard and Hot Sauce.
The "Wake-Up Call," packed with cheesesteak, bacon, eggs, hash browns, and pork roll.
And the "Phat Veg," an all-vegetarian hoagie fashioned with eggplant parm, mozzarella sticks, french fries and soaked in Sanchez Sauce, a recent addition to the menu.
"The customers help come up with the names," explains Maltabes. Other hoagie titles include "The Middle Finger," "Phat Lady" and "The Big Cat."
The original sandwich startup, A and S Deli, was launched by Maltabes' father in the 1960s before making a move around Nassau St. and making a name change and a family business hand-down to finally settle at 242 Nassau St. as Hoagie Haven.
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Crafting specialty sandwiches until 1 a.m. most nights, Hoagie Haven serves as a late-night sandwich sanctuary, as Princeton University students and other locals stroll in after a night out for some midnight munchies.
"They tell others this is where I ate when I was in college," says Maltabes.
While Subway sandwiches' logo may be easily recognized nationwide, Hoagie Haven receives it's publicly in alternate ways.
"All over the world, students go abroad and talk about it," Maltabes says.
Through word of mouth, Haven logo t-shirts, sweatshirts, hats, and at one point frisbees, the shop rakes in customers eager to alter their sandwich tasting experience.
The Maltabes' have twice bested a Subway, in 2015 and earlier this year.
"I don't understand their slogan 'eat fresh,' says Maltabes, explaining how Subway stores have all their ingredients in packages, whereas Hoagie Haven employees do all their preparation in-store.
"I don't have any microwaves in here," says Maltabes, referencing to Subway's food-preparation processes.
Forty-two years later and Hoagie Haven's mission to cater specifically to customers and not cave in to "making sandwiches like the other guys" stays the same, Maltabes says.
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