Located in the Tuckahoe Shopping Center off of Ridge Road, Bernie’s Sub and Pizza Shop has been a Richmond institution for the better part of fifty years, and to anyone who finds themselves in this quaint storefront it becomes exceedingly clear that there is a stark deference to the restaurant’s past.
The interior is a bit dingy and run down with shaky tables and the old-style backlit plastic menu board that lists their two main exports: pizza and subs. Collegiate pennants line the walls of the restaurant—a few of which were acknowledged to be nearly as old as the restaurant itself during my visit. It’s a no-frills establishment, and honestly who would want it any other way?
The matriarch of Bernie’s is Susan: a kind elderly woman who runs the front of house and who seemingly has an already-established rapport with just about every customer who finds themselves in the restaurant. It became exceedingly clear to me that Susan is the backbone of this establishment and that her loyal customer base comes in equal parts for the food that courses childhood nostalgia through their bloodstream, but also to catch up with Susan.
And almost as if it’s a bit of a performance art (or maybe a slight pilgrimage), nearly every customer that walks in feels obliged to mention how much Bernie’s has meant to them over the years. One man, for example, recalled riding bikes with his friend’s up to the store when they were kids fifty years ago. Another remarked his fondness for how the interior carpet has remained the same for decades. Susan was quick to point out that the carpets were replaced not too long ago, but that they had replaced them with the same type of carpet. Regardless, the man felt comforted by at least one thing in his life not changing, and there’s real poetry in that.
The only negative charge worth addressing in Bernie’s insistence on capturing its essence in a time capsule is its enduring resolve in only accepting cash or check. As someone who has completely enveloped himself in the digital age, the cash requirement can be a frustrating roadblock, especially on a day where my hankering for a Bernie’s sub came alongside the aftermath of a storm that left much of the Greater Richmond area (including several branches of my personal bank) without power.
It’s not the most fun thing in the world to have to go on a quixotic odyssey to find cash simply because a restaurant refuses to just raise their prices to account for the traditional credit card charge. That last thought is pure conjecture on my part. There could be other reasons for Bernie’s cash or cash adjacent only policy, but in my opinion, it creates unnecessary friction in this day and age.
Note to the reader: I was a student at the University of Richmond’s MBA program a few years back and I found myself at Bernie’s a few times before. I generally knew what to expect but I have been there so infrequently that it felt best to just wipe the prior experiences from my brain and walk in with fresh eyes. And that leads me to my visit.
I ordered a whole Italian sub with hot peppers (and no onions) and a Coke. I saw a shirt hanging behind the counter that read “Italian with hot peppers; extra soggy”. I had a quick second of thought where I figured maybe I should dive headfirst into the Bernie’s subculture and order my Italian “extra soggy”, but a cooler head prevailed and I allowed myself to play it safe for the review. Maybe next time when I have the wind at my back, I’ll be a little more adventurous.
Because I have a strong dislike for raw onions, I often find myself asking for the contents of a sub before ordering. For me it’s typically proved to be the quickest way to getting to the point of my question (that I don’t want onions) without having to create confusion by saying I don’t want onions upfront and then the employee wondering what in the world I meant because the sub doesn’t come with onions in the first place. I hear you from the other side of your screen wondering why I’m overthinking it. I just do. I’m sorry.
In doing so, Susan pegged me for a new customer. I told her I’d been a few times and tried to meekly explain about the onion thing. That didn’t seem to compute so we moved on. I told her I had been a student at the University of Richmond. She told me she had an Accounting professor at the school who was a regular customer and who would offer extra credits to his students if they would come eat at Bernie’s. I thought that was an incredible marketing strategy, and I think more sub shops should be employing those same tactics. The heart of success is through university professors bribing their students with extra credit.
After our short conversation ended and I swelled with pride feeling like I had entered the inner sanctum of Susan’s friendship, I took a seat and waited for my food. Everything at Bernie’s is made to order, so the sub took about ten to fifteen minutes to arrive. In that time I got to do a little eavesdropping.
It was at this point that some of the earlier anecdotes about bicycling and carpets emerged as customers came through to pick up their food. At one point the cook came up from the back and was chatting with Susan about Game 6 of the Pacers-Thunders game, and how much they appreciated that the Pacers had a woman on their coaching staff. They couldn’t remember the coach’s name, but they loved her enthusiasm on the bench and liked that she was hailed from the University of Virginia (for any curious minds out there, they were talking about Jenny Boucek).
Finally, the sub arrived. The food at Bernie’s dutifully lives up to the hype of its institutional reputation. The bread was nice and toasty, and the cheese formed a beautiful melty blanket over top the deli meats. The real star of the dish is the intermingling flavors of the hot peppers with the oil and vinegar blend—an enveloping mouth feel that either burrows deep into the crunchy bread or finds its way into a dripping salad on the plate. That has to be the marker of a good Italian: is there a second meal that you can sop up with your fingers off of the plate? In Bernie’s case, you can nearly lick the plate clean.
Ravenously hungry and not minding my manners as I dug into the sub, I realized I scarfed down the whole thing within an ungodly short amount of time. I choose to believe that’s a sign of the quality of the food rather than my own tendencies. It could be a mixture of both, but I will say the sub was on point.
Because Bernie’s only takes cash and I’m often on the other side of town, it’s not really a place I find myself coming back to a whole lot. But I find that when I step out of there having ravaged my way through my Italian sub, I do often wonder why that is. Maybe I’ll need to make a point to visit more often. After all, how can I expect to remain in Susan’s inner sanctum if I don’t make more of an effort on my side to value the friendship?