"Our Achilles heel, our blessing and our curse, is our bread. D'Elia's bread has a crisp, almost flaky exterior and its owners get complaints that the bread is stale on almost a daily basis. At the same time, they get just as many devotees begging them to open a location in a neighboring state."
"Ralph and Mary D'Elia and John and Gladys Perrone opened D'Elia's Grinders in 1955, expanding their family's sandwich shop roots from Italy and Norwich, Connecticut, to Riverside. They had moved out to the Inland Empire seeking warmth and the California dream, baking bread from an old Italian recipe and selling it initially as a combination bakery/deli."
"It's a term that began in the Northeast with some of its origins up for debate, but most agree it probably had at least something to do the 'grind' it required of your teeth to get through these thick-breaded sandwiches. People still ask me, what's a grinder? co-owner John Perrone Jr. said with a laugh, admitting it's probably not great for the shop's searchability."
D'Elia's Grinders, established in 1955 by Italian immigrant families, has operated as a family-owned sandwich shop in Riverside for seven decades. The shop's defining characteristic is its daily-baked bread made from an original Italian recipe, featuring a crisp, flaky exterior that differs significantly from typical soft sandwich rolls. This distinctive bread generates polarized reactions: customers either love it and request new locations or complain it tastes stale. Co-owners Brian Perrone and John Perrone Jr. inherited the business from their fathers and maintain the original recipe and commitment to fresh daily baking. The shop's name "grinder," a Northeast term referring to thick-breaded sandwiches, remains unfamiliar to West Coast customers, presenting marketing challenges despite the shop's loyal following.
Read at SFGATE
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