5 Things: April 5th

On Monday, April 1st, we cut our menu down to just the Cajun Finn. It is our most popular sandwich by a wide margin, so we figured we'd do everyone a favor and eliminate the paralysis that comes from too many good option. Streamlining our sandwich menu received mixed reviews on our social media.

By popular request, we brought everything back. After just one day, we realized that sandwich menu diversity has always been a core part of our identity (at least since we started serving sandwiches, several million minutes before I began working here), and we restored the menu to its full glory, with a new sandwich, to boot——

We added The Bloody Mary to our sandwich menu. Usually all it takes is saying "Bloody Mary sandwich" and people salivate and groan with desire, but for anyone unconvinced, allow me to describe the process by which we make it:

It starts with a Kaiser roll from Johnson's Bakery. For those of you who have spent any time in Duluth and have not checked out Johnson's Bakery: Why not? They have a fantastic assortment of baked goods, including my favorite donuts and quick breads in the area, and NWS uses their rolls for several specials—BBQ Brisket on Wednesdays, Hot Pastrami occasionally on Wednesdays, Hot Porketta on Thursdays, and the Kaiser roll for our MN Pulled Pork on Fridays—and now for our April Sandwich Lab special.

We top the bottom slice of the roll with sliced green olives and dill pickle, then lay a slice of cheddar cheese on each side of the roll. We toast this for a couple of minutes alongside some smoked pancetta. It all gets nice and hot and crispy. Once it's toasted, we throw four thick slices of beef and pork summer sausage over the melted cheese, olives, and pickles, then cover that with the pancetta. The pancetta is doused in a hausmade spicy tomato Bloody Mary sauce, then we finish it off with a cold slice of tomato, thin-cut red onion and a cilantro garnish.

The Bloody Mary costs $12.50+tax. Try it this weekend on our patio with a liquid Bloody Mary from Lake Avenue Café, if you're feeling extra saucy.

Like all of our Sandwich Lab specials, this sandwich is only available for a month. It comes off the menu on May 6th. It also earns you two stamps on your punch card, if you're into that sort of thing.

Perfect for brunch on the patio.

We are popping up all over town. We're taking our small catering game to the next level with regular pop-ups at some of our favorite local watering holes. Our tentative (but nearing on fixed) monthly pop-up schedule looks something like this:

• First Wednesday of the month: Bent Paddle Brewing Co. Taproom 5-8 p.m.

• First Friday of the month: Hoops Brewing Company 5-8 p.m.

• Alternating Thursdays: Cedar Lounge (April 4th) & Duluth Cider (April 11th) 5-8 p.m.

Next Friday, April 12th, we're making a special appearance at the Cedar Lounge from 4-7 p.m.

(Tonight we'll be at Hoops from 5-8 p.m.)

What we're serving is bound to change at some point, but for now we're really vibing on smoked chicken wings, sauced to order with maple sambal, soy ginger, or buffalo, and served with a delicious hausmade bleu cheese dipping sauce.

Our resident pickler/fermenter, TK, threw together some spicy zucchini kimchi for these pop-ups as well, and we keep a grip of smoked sockeye buddies and an assortment of our latest baked goods on hand.

To keep up on our poppings-up, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Patricia is just rude. I kid, of course, but she keeps making all of these cookies that make me want to spend all my money. It bears repeating that all of our cookies are available as Box Lunch options.

Her latest creation is a savory potato chip cookie sandwich with a sweet date filling.

She's been making pasties with ingredients from our daily specials as well. So far, she's made MN Pulled Pork and Maple Breakfast Sausage and Gravy (like finger-food biscuits and gravy) varieties. Look for them in our deli this weekend, and ask around if you don't see any.

Forgive me my unskilled smartphone photography.

I'll see you back here for more Things™ next week. Same Thing™ time, same Thing™ place.

NWS Delivery Update

Hungry for NWS, but stuck at home/the office/the beach, or hesitant to head into Canal Park? Try our delivery service!

Check the link above for more detailed information on our renovated delivery service. What follows is the most important details.

Our in-haus delivery team delivers our full menu, including apparel and grocery orders within a limited range daily from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.*

And we've recently teamed up with Food Dudes Delivery to extend our delivery hours and range! Food Dudes delivers our sandwiches and sides 11 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. daily.

Minimum delivery cost is $15, and we apply a $3.50 delivery fee. Food Dudes assesses a separate delivery fee. The delivery fees do not stack.

*Some exceptions, such as catering and sandwich platter orders, may apply. If you have any questions, call us at (218) 724-7307 during regular delivery hours and see how we can help.

SANDWICH LAB: The Bloody Mary

IN THE DELICATESSEN SCENE, NEVER SHAKING UP YOUR SANDWICH MENU IS CONSIDERED ESPECIALLY HEINOUS. AT NORTHERN WATERS SMOKEHAUS, THE DEDICATED DELI EMPLOYEES WHO INNOVATE ON THE SANDWICH MENU ARE MEMBERS OF AN ELITE SQUAD KNOWN AS THE SANDWICH LAB. THESE ARE THEIR STORIES:

You’re inside a house. Everything around you is cast in shadow, and cold seeps through the cracked windows. You see a flight of stairs take a right turn, disappearing into foreboding darkness. You creep up the stairs and find yourself in a hallway. A faint glow radiates under a door at the end of the hallway, and soon you are in front of it. There’s a thumping sound so close that you cannot determine whether it is, in fact your heartbeat, or some ominous being right behind you. As you reach for the door handle, you realize you’ve been holding a brass chamberstick with an unlit red candle.

You find yourself in a room bare of furniture, save for a single mirror—about exactly your height—standing in the center. Hickory chips cover the floor and a string hangs from a light above the mirror.

You close the door and turn off the lights. The candle’s wick ignites in a tiny fireball, barely illuminating the mirror, yet offering no salvation from the pervasive darkness. You look in the mirror and whisper, “crispy pancetta and summer sausage” three times.

"crispy pancetta and summer sausage, crispy pancetta and summer sausage, crispy pancetta and summer sausage"

In the mirror, you see of a spectral image yourself, but it is not your reflection. You’re standing at a counter, handing money to someone you don’t know, but no!, you’re here in this room with the wood chips on the floor.

Your heart begins to race and your palms grow sweaty, your knees weak, your arms heavy, and suddenly it seems impossible to keep a grip on the candle holder any longer and the flames are igniting the hickory at your feet, and then the room is entirely ablaze. You are choking on a thick simulacrum of air as you are smoked alive.

In the mirror, you see someone handing you a sandwich, and then you see yourself holding the sandwich: summer sausage, crispy pancetta, cheddar, tomato, olives, pickles, onion, and cilantro, dripping hausmade Bloody Mary mix and assembled on a toasted kaiser roll.

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You gasp for any semblance of breathable air. You close your eyes, and hold them shut. A floating sensation calms you momentarily, until the final terror sets in. The smoke is taking you and you will not face the end with your eye closed.

When you open your eyes. You're standing in a brightly lit deli. A throng of people buzzes around you—laughter, conversation, audible groans of culinary pleasure. The house, the stairs, the hallway, the mirror, the candlestick, and the great conflagration were all in your head, and you were simply waiting for your Bloody Mary, the latest NWS Sandwich Lab special. You take in a deep, sudden breath, but the crowd hardly takes notice.

The Hunger must have gotten to you.

Bloody good.

The Bloody Mary costs $12.50 plus tax and is available in our deli now through May 6th.

WHAT IS SANDWICH LAB?

AT NORTHERN WATERS SMOKEHAUS, OUR WORK IS PLAYING WITH FOOD. THAT MEANS SOMETIMES, IN THE LINE OF DUTY, WE STUMBLE UPON AN AMAZING COMBINATION OF INGREDIENTS THAT EVOLVES OVER SEVERAL SHIFT-MEALS INTO A NOTEWORTHY NEW SANDWICH. OTHER TIMES WE UNCOVER A MORE EFFICIENT WAY TO BUILD A SANDWICH, OR WE SWAP AN INGREDIENT ON A CURRENT MENU ITEM.SANDWICH LAB IS AN ANNUAL GATHERING OF OUR STAFF TO REFINE OUR SANDWICH-LINE SKILLS, TO COME TO AGREEMENT ON ANY CONTROVERSIES, AND—THE BEST PART—TO INTRODUCE OUR PET SANDWICHES TO THE GREATER SMOKEHAUS COMMUNITY.

NOTABLE SANDWICH LAB FINDINGS FROM PREVIOUS YEARS INCLUDE THE CEDARS’S SECRET, THE PURPLE RANGE, THE PHOEBE, AND THE PORK LION. LAST YEAR’S SANDWICH LAB HAD SO MANY GOOD SANDWICHES THAT WE COULDN’T DECIDE ON JUST ONE OR TWO TO ADD TO THE MENU, SO WE DECIDED TO GIVE THEM ALL A CHANCE TO SHINE, AS MONTH-LONG SPECIALS.

An Important Announcement About the Future of Northern Waters Smokehaus

Over the past year, we at Northern Waters Smokehaus have taken a serious look at our history and our present business model, as a way to plan for our future success.

At the beginning, we were just a small smoked fish shop somewhere in Superior, WI. After a great deal of hand-wringing, Eric gave in and came up with a few new options to satiate the customers who craved something more. Eventually the demand for something new built up again and Eric yielded, as he did again and again, and finally arrived at something beginning to look like the diverse lineup of products we offer. Frankly, it has gotten out of hand.

Before I get too far ahead of myself, we will still be offering a wide assortment of smoked fish & meats, cheese, olives, etc.

Sandwiches were originally just a marketing ploy. A chunk of baguette, cut and butter-spackled, is a perfect vessel upon which to sample out a few slices of saucisson sec. But, as the old saying goes, if you give a customer a sample sandwich, they're going to want a sandwich menu.

And just like the smoked meats, the demand grew and grew, and so did the menu.

Offering a dazzlingly wide variety of options on our sandwich menu eventually became a point of pride. Silly protein-related puns turned into top-down designs of new sandwiches. Sometimes an employee would slap together a few random ingredients, obsess about it, start calling it a particular name over and over until it forcibly caught on. Sandwiches even came to folks in dreams, which is a sentence I never imagined I'd be able to write in a professional setting.

So we put them on the menu, gave them glorious painstakingly crafted signage, memorized how to make them, recommended them and observed people's reactions to the clever names...then sighed as they ordered—yet again—the Cajun Finn sandwich.

cajun finn

The Cajun Finn: Scallion cream cheese, cajun-seasoned smoked Atlantic salmon, pepperoncinis, roasted red peppers, and lettuce on a ciabatta roll. Sure, it's good. It may even be great. Heck, it's probably exceptional. But every time?

In its nearly two decades of existence, the Cajun Finn has earned a cult-like following, and has become nearly synonymous with the name Northern Waters Smokehaus.

We've listened to the people, and are giving them what they want. So, without further ado, effective today, we are truncating our sandwich menu, and only offering the Cajun Finn. In the wise words of one employee, "choice is really just a burden."

This is it.

Gone are the days of struggling to find a spot on the sandwich line to make a Hedonist, a Sitka Sushi, or a Northern Bagel. Gone are the days of the right-hand sandwich maker joking, "time to ride 'the Finn Train,'" because, from here on out, it's all Finn Train all day.

Our updated sandwich menu

We hope to see you soon for a sandwich. Try the Cajun Finn! It's the only option.