They also had no name.
Leafing through a dictionary, starting with A, Conza
stopped halfway through
the B’s when he saw
“blimp.” It’s shaped like
a sandwich, he thought.
And a blimp needs an
airbase. The three partners
borrowed $2,000 from
a friend and $500 from
a jukebox operator and
opened the first Blimpie
Base (the latter word was
dropped within a year) at
the corner of Seventh and Washington
streets in Hoboken. They first sought the
blessing of the owner of Mike’s Subs,
who said the stores were far enough
apart that there was business enough
for both. (Indeed, under a later owner,
Mike’s Subs became Jersey Mike’s, today
a much larger chain than Blimpie’s.)
The friends had no money for ads,
bunting or fliers. Yet on opening day,
Saturday, April 4, 1964 (the day “Can’t
Buy Me Love” jumped to No. 1 on the
Billboard Hot 100, giving the Beatles all
five top spots), the three men sliced cold
cuts, assembled sandwiches and (on
manual cash registers) literally
rang up customers for 12
hours nonstop. The day’s
receipts, $265, sound
paltry until you consider
that most sandwiches
cost 35 or 50 cents.
Their biggest dream
was to open 10 stores.
Within 90 days they had
opened a second and a third.
“Suppliers were excited to see
how much bread and meat we were
selling,” Conza says. But instead of paying their bills, they funneled their cash
flow into opening more stores.
Turkey proved very popular, so they
started buying loads of it from Watson’s
Turkey Farm in Gloucester County. “We
must have owed them $10,000 at one
point,” Conza says. One day, a large man
in coveralls, a plaid shirt and filthy work
boots walked into the carpeted o;ce
Blimpie’s had opened in Jersey City’s
Journal Square. “His boots smeared
turkey dung on our carpet. He said, ‘My
name is Irvin Watson, and you owe me
a lot of money.’ We sat him down, made
nice and worked out a deal with him.”
In 1968, Conza joined forces with a
young lawyer, David Siegel. In the ’70s,
they began opening stores in Atlanta,
did well there, and eventually formed
a company they optimistically called
Blimpie International. “We had a great
run,” Conza says, “from around 1988,
when we had 200 stores, until we had
about 2,100 stores.” In 2002, he and Sie-
gel sold the company to an investment
group for a sum between $25.8 million
and $33 million.
From that day Conza has had no
connection with Blimpie, now part of
Kahala Brands (which also owns Cold
Stone Creamery). There are only
about 600 stores now, but
at last Blimpie’s is truly
international, with eight
locations in Kuwait.
Kahala pulled Conza
back into the limelight this
year to help promote the
50th anniversary, including
an event at a Jersey City store
in April. “People lined up,” Conza
says. “They still love the sandwich.”
In pop-culture terms, if Blimpie’s na-
dir was making David Letterman’s “Top
Ten Signs You’re Too Fat” in 2002 (“ 7.
You skip your son’s wedding because
you don’t want to miss Blimpie’s two-
for-one sale.”) the peak was Sex and
the City’s “Running With Scissors” epi-
sode in 2000. In it, Miranda complains
to a Blimpie store manager that his guy
in the sandwich costume invited her to
“Eat me!” His response?
“Lady, he’s a sandwich.” ;
NEW JERSE Y MONTHLY October 2014 119
EXPANSION:
Three months
after opening their
first store in 1964,
the three friends
opened this one
in Jersey City,
attended by two
local politicians
in neckties. From
left, Peter DeCarlo,
Tony Conza and
Angelo Baldassare. Below, Conza
at a Jersey City
store in April to
celebrate Blimpie’s
50th anniversary.
RED KNOT
Kenilworth
FOOD: Contemporary gastropub
AMBIENCE: Casual yet classy
clubhouse
SERVICE: Eager, if unpolished
WINE LIST: Enticing and global,
but given the moderate food
prices, too few bottles under
$40; wines by glass, all at $9,
give good value, reasonable quality; interesting draft-beer flights
PRICES: Appetizers, burgers, pizzas, $9-$14; pastas and entrées,
$16-$27 (daily specials $14); desserts, $8-$9
HOURS: Dinner: Monday through
Saturday, 5-10 PM; Sunday, 5-10 PM.
Lunch: 11 AM- 5 PM daily
AX, MC, V, D, DC; ;
3 Golf Drive, Galloping Hill Golf
Course, Kenilworth (908-241-2211;
redknotrestaurant.com)
If you’ve passed Exit 138 on the Parkway in the last few years, you’ve seen it being built, slowly
rising, a massive stone building looming
over the southbound lanes, but equally
visible from the northbound side. Wags
say it looks like a mausoleum—and not
just because golfers gather at the bar
inside to mourn their missed putts and
immortalize their best rounds. The
imposing three-story building is, in fact,
the new clubhouse of Union County’s
Galloping Hill Golf Course.
The top floor houses the offices of the
New Jersey State Golf Association and
several large banquet rooms booked far
in advance for weddings and meetings.
The ground floor holds the golf pro shop,
locker rooms and a restaurant, Red Knot,
that deserves to be recognized as much
more than a place to grab a bite after nine
holes or review a round over drinks.
While every golfer lives for birdies, likely few Jerseyans know that Red
Knot is named for a migratory bird
that flies overhead twice a year. Union
County deliberately chose a non-golfy
name because it wants the restaurant
to be recognized on its own merits, not
