Good Food Cheap: Sandwich Hero

Photo by Brent Fleury.

Mike and Kathy Cole of McFarlan Bake Shop.

Whatever you do, don’t tell Mike Cole that his sandwiches are too cheap. He might raise the prices…and that would be a tragedy.

Mike is the owner of Hendersonville’s McFarlan Bake Shop. The sandwiches – good old-fashioned cold-cuts-lettuce-tomato-onion belly busters – sell for less than $5. In our considered opinion, this puts Mr. Cole and his bakery colleagues right up there with the folks who discovered fire and the wheel.

This would be a good place to mention that Mr. Cole’s establishment won top donut honors a few years ago in a Bold Life blind taste test. The man knows his way around an oven and has a fine appreciation for the value of a buck.

The sandwiches feature four ounces of meat, cheese, veggies, and condiments…all stacked up on fresh McFarlan bread or rolls.

But say you’re trying to stay light on your feet and don’t want that much food for lunch. Choose instead the smaller bagel sandwich. This item (slightly more than $3) features the same cold cuts (but in two-ounce portions), a choice of cheese, and the traditional condiments wedged between one of McFarlan’s freshly baked bagels.

One word of caution: if you’re a bagel-loving traditionalist who cut your teeth on New York City-style bagels, you might not recognize the local variety. It’s more of a tasty, soft bun with a hole roughly in the middle. Aside from that caveat, however, we stand by our view that Mike Cole is a giant among sandwich men and his bakery is a fine destination for lunch in downtown Hendersonville.

McFarlan Bake Shop is located at 309 North Main Street in Downtown Hendersonville. Call 828-693-4256 for more information.

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