It is the most famous sandwich in Lowell.
The Boott Mill sandwich. The joke about the sandwich has always been that after you eat the delicious, artery-clogging, calorie-rising creation, your first call should be to your cardiologist.
The sandwich can be purchased at Arthur's Paradise Diner on Bridge Street. The diner has been in operation since 1936. I learned the origin of the famous sandwich when researching an appreciation story I'm working on for The Sun on the life of Arthur Dufresne, the former owner of the diner, who recently died at age 95.
Dufresne bought the diner and gave it its present name in 1973. One day, believed to be in the mid-1980s, a customer who worked at the nearby Boott Mill came in. Dufresne wasn't great remembering the names of his customers. He associated them with their line of work.
The man told Arthur he was especially hungry that morning. So Dufresne loaded up a sandwich: eggs, cheese, hash browns and meat - either bacon, ham or sausage - and placed it between a sliced bulkie roll.
The man left Arthur's satisfied. A nearby customer, a Lowell High School student, said to Arthur, according to one of his sons, "What did you make for that guy from the Boott Mill?"
The next time the LHS student came to the diner, he asked for the same sandwich.
"It just piled on from there," Arthur Dufresne Jr. told me.
A legendary sandwich was born. Tens of thousands of them have been served since that morning. In 2001, Dufresne, then 75, sold the diner to Paul Delisle. Delisle kept the Boott Mill on the menu. Smart decision. So go in and order a Boott Mill. Do it memory of Arthur Dufresne. And have your cardiologist's number handy just in case.
Comments