Debbie’s Is the Real Deal for Hoagies and Hot Dogs
Chef-owner Ed Davis taps into his legendary industry background when creating stacked sandwiches, hot dogs and salads.
The mortadella sandwich and cucumber salad at Debbie’s.
When new restaurants go high, Ed Davis goes low “brow.” He once was the chef de cuisine at Benjamin Sukle’s lauded birch and Oberlin restaurants, and now he owns his own business – a really “damn, delicious” sandwich shop – in Downcity called Debbie’s. Named after his mom, the homey lunch and dinner spot serves hoagies and hot dogs with farm-sourced sides and salads that just might upstage the main characters.
Davis got his start in Providence’s burgeoning culinary scene at Farmstead in Wayland Square under chef Matthew Jennings, alongside Ben Sukle. He moved on to the former beloved neighborhood hang Cook & Brown, where he first met his partner Jen Davis, who has been the Beverage Director at the Eddy for over a decade. While both places no longer exist, their fresh-from-the-farm influence is evident in some of the bright and beautiful salads and sandwiches that Davis now serves at Debbie’s. He also previously served as sous chef at the Dorrance, before birch and Oberlin, and then moved over to running Durk’s Bar-B-Q before he made the decision to go out on his own.
Whether it’s upscale or simpler, he says the steadfast work ethic remains the same across the table. “To be honest, cooking is hard if you’re trying to do it well; so whether it’s ‘high end’ or casual, you’re gonna be working your ass off, if you want it to be good,” he says. “I think the whole casual-to-high-end spectrum is extremely subjective anyways.”
And he’s right. Some of the sides and salads he’s producing at Debbie’s could be right at home at a restaurant like New Rivers or Oberlin. However, to go out on his own, Davis had a reality check on what he and his family could finance. “We could only afford to open up something super small with minimum overhead that I could basically carry on my shoulders as long as I needed to,” he says. “Having an entire kitchen staff and front of house and nice plates and points of service and a high rent and a beverage program etc. just seemed pretty far out of reach right now and not a risk I was, or am, willing to take.” Right now, it’s just him and one other staff member holding down the whole place.
Although the city’s culinary champions agree Davis has the skills to run a fine dining empire, the epicurean entrepreneur stayed on budget with Debbie’s intimate storefront next to Frisky Fries.
Davis and Ben Sukle worked together for many years, back when birch and Oberlin first started mounting culinary accolades for the city of Providence. “Ed is one of the most reliable and unshakable chefs I have ever worked with. The kind who can handle endless prep, any rush, and whatever chaos the day throws at him while staying calm and focused,” Sukle says. “He was a cornerstone for me in those early years, and I honestly do not know what things would have looked like without him.”
Sukle is thrilled that Davis now has a place to call his own. “Seeing him step into ownership and complete creative control feels right. He has earned it and is great at it. I know he agrees with me,” he adds. “We are lucky he is still in Providence, helping shape this new wave of restaurants downtown with real substance and skill.”
Davis’s biggest inspiration for Debbie’s is the former location of Superiority Burger in New York City. “I ate there once and fell in love with how small the space and menu were and how high the quality of everything was,” Davis says. “In my head, if I was ever going to open a space, I wanted to do something like what they were doing.” He also drew local inspiration from successful businesses like Irregardless and There, There, both serving high quality food in no-frills counter-service spaces. “They helped reinforce the idea that Debbie’s could work,” he adds. Nods to an old favorite, the Wurst Kitchen at Chez Pascal, are also obvious in his creations.
Nostalgic decor in Debbie’s
As for the sandwiches, the most popular choices are the mortadella and the hoagie, made with bread from Antonio’s Bakery in Warwick. Davis puts his own spin on some condiments, creating a spread out of pistachios and olives for the “high brow” mortadella stacked with the pistachio tapenade, marinated tomatoes and salsa verde. The hoagie stars four cold cuts, provolone, spread, mayo and Italian dressing. The “low brow” fried bologna sandwich includes pimento cheese, potato stix, yellow mustard and pickled peppers.
Hot dogs are Sabrett all-beef franks snuggled into tried-and-true Martin’s potato buns. The dogs are piled with toppings from simple sauerkraut and Grey Poupon for the “Lingwall,” to “the Bacon One,” with bacon jam, crispy onions, whole grain mustard and chives. They even have a hot dog tribute to Rhode Island Dynamite with meat sauce, USA cheddar cheese and French’s mustard.
Never skip the salads. The cucumber salad with feta, pistachios, lime juice and fresh herbs is outstanding, as is the tomato salad with pepperoni and Parmesan cheese with balsamic and scallions, decked out like a loaded pizza. Davis is constantly evolving the menu to keep up with the seasons. “Using what’s available locally makes it a little easier with the salads,” he says. “I pick a couple of things that’ll be around for a while and make something good.”
Summer isn’t the best time to gauge success of a business like his, but he’s giving it his best shot and putting everything he can into it. Hours are Tuesday through Saturday from 11:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. “I did come into this with eyes wide open so I intended to (and am) spending basically every waking hour in the restaurant or dealing with stuff for the restaurant,” he says. “The beginning of a restaurant is always a really tough time, but it is nice knowing I’m working real hard for something that is 100 percent mine.”
100 Washington St., Providence, debbiesri.com; instagram.com/debbies_ri
A tribute to “Footprints” in the bathroom at Debbie’s.
