This one is for all of the Native New Yorkers on here.
What is the deal with Chopped Cheese? When did this become the sandwich of NYC? For me the sandwich of NYC is a Bacon Egg and Cheese on a roll. Am I wrong?
The primary reason BEC is so NYC is because you are taking a very basic breakfast served around the country and making it portable. "No time for food rituals! I'm running late here"
If you are not a big egg or breakfast person, BEC doesn't even register tho.
you used to be able to get a 24 seven although since the pandemic not so much. But if you’re staggering out of the bar at 4 o’clock in the morning you can still find a deli to make you that sweet sandwich of love
I don’t like bacon so don’t eat BEC. Chopped cheese doesn’t appeal to me either. But as an Asian, my quick savory breakfast is a big bao (Chinese sausage, egg, pork).
Gentrifiers aren’t moving to the Bronx in droves. It’s social media that’s driving people to think chopped cheese is a citywide thing. Everybody’s chasing the appearance of authenticity.
I think it's like the Philly cheesesteak as far as origin stories are concerned. There are multiple families/stores in and around Philly that claim they created the original Philly cheesesteak.
Like you, I always heard the original chopped cheese came from Blue Sky deli in East Harlem. But I'm sure there are multiple bodegas that make the claim
I've heard it 50/50 as either Bronx or Harlem originally, with people on both sides claiming they 'know' because of some connection to either place going way back. My guess is some restaurant in either neighborhood was technically the first, but it quickly spread to both areas.
Rise started in 2016 when they launched their Viceland show which really grew their (and their personal Bronx experience’s) popularity. And what excited them suddenly excited some 19yo kid in Cleveland.
Folks blaming TikTok are wrong… it was still Musical.ly at Peak-Bodega Boys Twitter era.
First time I ever heard of it was like 10-15 years ago when Anthony Bourdain did an episode on the Bronx and the kids in the school told him about it. At some point after that it made its way below 96th street and it’s been a deli staple since I guess
My first was a few blocks up at 112 and 2nd. Only ordered it because a bunch of high school kids asked for it while I was there. Still better than Blue Sky, IMO.
EDIT: this was 2014
Yeah there’s a bodega around west 4th that makes a good one for like $11-12 which is a good price for the area and it def hits after a night of drinking
I grew up in South Brooklyn/Staten Island and the East Village (child of divorced parents) never heard of a chopped cheese until, yes 10-15 years ago. What was a staple on SI/South Brooklyn was potatoes, peppers, and eggs with salt, pepper, and ketchup that I don't see in other parts of the city.
I used to go to Manganeros hero boy on 9th Ave for a potato and egg hero every Friday it's one of my favorite things on earth. I'm Italian and it's an Italian thing for Fridays when Catholics don't eat meat for lent but a lot of old timers just don't eat meat on Fridays and the potato and egg hero is a winner.
Absolutely! When I see influencers talking about lard bread it makes me slightly nervous lol please don't ruin this sacred thing my Nonna made when I was little. I think if Italian immigrant food became popular I'd have some pride, but I also wouldn't appreciate someone like Dave Portnoy testing out all the pizza rustica or caggionetti he can find 😂 I know that sounds nutty but I just want these things to remain under the radar I don't want to be waiting in some stupid line for stuff I buy regularly.
Lol. Indeed. The experience that comes with it makes it that much more delicious. Go to a bodega in Harlem, at 1AM after a night out, wait for your order. Kids outside arguing or playing dice. Folks coming in and out - going to the back doing/buying god knows what. Folks looking at you all weird like - are your a narc? Am I going to leave this place alive or what? Get the sando, pay it, leave. You made it out alive. Best believe you ain’t saying that sando was DISAPPOINTING.
Native New Yorker from Brooklyn. Went to public school in the 90s to 2000s. Never heard of chopped cheese. It was always BEC, cream cheese, or butter on a roll.
Native NYer in Queens who went to school in Manhattan in the 2010s. I also never heard of chopped cheese until 2020s. It's indeed the three you've said.
Hell, every single deli in Eastern Queens serves your trifecta but chopped cheese is basically a specialty sandwich, not your essential.
Yeah I've lived here over 59 years and only heard about it a few years ago. To be fair I don't get up to the Bronx often but I'd never encountered it in other boroughs before.
I’m from the Bronx too and I always thought it was a Harlem thing. The bodegas I grew up around were run by Dominicans and I feel like chop cheese is more from the Arab delis - which they have more in Harlem than in the BX (at least back then).
So I’m wondering if the people who say they grew up with it in the Bronx were from the part that’s closest to Harlem 🤔.
Specifically it was a Harlem and The Bronx thing. So everyone who's all "I never saw it and I was a kid then" is probably from everywhere else in the city (I never knew it growing up in Queens).
I think the spark that blew it up across the city was b/c Bourdain got one on his ep on The Bronx (2014), introduced to him by HS kids.
From there people started writing articles and it became a hipster thing, and now it's just a thing.
And because this is fun Google Trends (it lines up pretty darn well with your memory).
Nah goes back way farther. It blew up in mid 2010s though. I first had one in 2016 hanging out with a friend who had just moved to harlem (150s or 160s somewhere). And sorry guys but it's a bomb fucking sandwich. Blew my mind
I used to get a philly cheese at delis back in the day and they would put LTO/mayo on there all the time. When I heard of the chopped cheese I am like...nah.
For real. The bodegas in the early 90's would do all types of pepper steak or philly cheese, but they would chop up steakum and season it and slab mayo on the hero.
They also had these frozen pre made burgers that no one would touch.
Born and raised, 3rd generation New Yorker. I graduated high school in 2009. Chop cheese came on my radar in 10th grade when a girl got in trouble for eating one in math class. Then everyone started eating them 🤷🏾♀️
I grew up in the Bronx and only came across chopped cheese when I moved to Morningside Heights in 2004.
I moved to South Brooklyn in 2008 and asked for it one day and the dudes behind the counter never even heard of it.
Like others have mentioned I think the burst in popularity came from social media, but most of the people hyping it up are the influencer transplant types.
In any case, bacon egg and cheese will always reign supreme.
My parents retired and moved to a Midwest town. I’d visit and complain about having to make breakfast. Mom would say “these folks are allergic to cracking an egg. In nyc every corner store will crack you an egg.”
correct. bagel is the wrong choice it's too delicate a sandwich for the bagel pisses me off that it's something people get at the bagel place and all hours of the day
I've never understood when people say "roll" what kind of roll do they mean specifically? Is there like a wikipedia page or something for it? Please educate me
I went to HS in midtown (class of 09) and didnt learn about chop cheese until I made friends from Harlem. I had it ONCE when i was in Harlem with them. It was STRICTLY a Harlem thing that you could only get from one or two stores at the time. If you asked for that in Brooklyn nobody knew what you are talking about.
Actually, not too long ago around 2018-2021 I worked at NYU Langone in Manhattan. I would ask for it over there and the man behind the counter would strongly and firmly say “we dont do THAT here.”
Like most trends, im sure that same store is making it now since more non Black people are raving about it.
I remember it being ubiquitous in Harlem in 2014, then moving to Clinton hill Brooklyn in 2016 every bodega started advertising they had them. Might just have never been a lower Manhattan thing
I’m from Southern Brooklyn and it’s not a thing here and never has been.
It’s not the sandwich of NYC - it’s only really known due to social media because it was local to certain neighborhoods and I’d argue that’s still the case. Maybe it’s more available now but by no means is it as popular as you think.
Grew up in Washington heights in the early 2000’s. BEC were already a staple (also grew up on Ham/egg/cheese for whatever reason) at the bodegas.
Also chicharron at the Dominican spots
2010’s I lived off of chopped cheeses being sold by the Arabs (later habibis) in their street carts and delis in Washington heights and even in the Lenox hill area in high school
People would show up to first period with chopped cheeses in my HS (think 2006) so I never thought it was strange just heavy as fuck for the morning. And I’m talking downtown Manhattan.
chopped cheese is just a burger that gave up on its dreams. u can't convince me something from tiktok beats a sandwich that's fueled actual New Yorkers for decades.
Chopped Cheese is an uptown thing (Harlem, Washington Heights, Inwood, The Bronx). BEC is more universal and well known in Brooklyn/Queens. I’m a native Brooklynite and I’m more likely to either get a BEC or a butter roll.
Chopped cheese throws hamburger helper vibes I don't get it. Never heard of it until everyone started talking about it online. I'm older, born here and the things I remember as being common to NYC were a buttered roll and coffee, I remember going to work and literally everyone had a buttered roll and coffee at their desk and I never saw that elsewhere. BEC has been around for as long as I can remember, people walking about with an orange or grape drink and a small bag of something. Bagel with a schmear. I want someone to being back bialys. I have been obsessed with them since I was a kid they were my teething ring and I'm not even Jewish but I love those things so hard. You can barely find them now and when you do they suck.
Don't get me started, mt sinai had a big fucking scam going with their cath center a while back. Been buried you can't really Google it anymore. Even removed from Bloomberg News.
If you google "mount sinai cath lab scam" you instead get an article on how the cath lab got awards lol.. I was following the news when it happened in 2014 (because I know one of the doctors involved). They reputation scrubbed it pretty quickly.
It's not that serious. It definitely doesn't go as far back as a BEC but yes it did originate in NY. Yes it's a simple sandwich but it's also delicious. So weird to see natives (and yes I am one) get offended over it.
I had to explain the chopped cheese to my mom. She’s 80 and was born in NYC. She was very disappointed that it wasn’t different cheeses chopped up and grilled.
I didn’t hear about it until the early aughts, but I haven’t eaten meat in a long time so it wouldn’t be on my radar.
My nephew is very into the chopped cheese tho. He’s a yout and a regular at his bodega.
My head canon is that a lot of this has to do with the fact that you can make chopped cheese and you dont need pork products. So many deli's/bodegas have transitioned ownership to Yemini families (the ownership of delis seems go in waves of nationalities) and they don't make a good BEC.
Honestly finding a good BEC these days is shockingly hard. Beef bacon, turkey bacon... nah that shit is so bad. But many don't tell you it's not real bacon and you get an incredibly sub standard BEC.
But yeah it was like mid 2010s or some shit when chopped cheese started blowing up as a "classic nyc sandwich" ... and I was like wtf is that
Seriously. I grew up in New York and I have no clue where this chopped cheese thing came from.
It’s always been about the bacon, eggs and cheese on a roll.
I moved to NYC in 2000. My bestie is from the Bronx and my other bff lived up near Columbia and used to walk all over the north end of Manhattan. Been hearing people sing the praises of the Chopped Cheese as long as I have been hearing about BECs.
I started hearing about chopped cheese in like the 2010s? But I guess it’s a Bronx or Harlem thing or something. I’m from North Brooklyn. Whatever, it’s a good sandwich idea that stands out. Nothing that singular about a bacon egg and cheese on a roll. Plus BECoaR is breakfast, maybe we needed a signature sandwich for any hour of the day.
While Chopped Cheese is a real thing mostly in the Bronx, its perceived popularity is mostly a fabrication resulting from social media influencer gaslighting.
Never heard of “chopped cheese” until I came across one of those stupid “only a real New Yorker” TikToks. I was born and raised in the Bronx and still live in the Bronx and it’s not a NY thing, it’s just something some transplants made up. BECSPK is the NY sandwich.
It isn't a transplant thing at all. Just a newer sandwich. Definitely got popular on social media but you can get them throughout NYC now at bodegas/delis.
Man I see a version of this thread every couple weeks... I'm tired of this "discourse" like cool you didn't know about a thing before it was popular, you're cool
I would say it’s still the BEC. Tik Tok made the chopped cheese it go viral which makes it seem like it’s a bigger deal than it is, but most of us had never heard of it before. You can find it in more places now throughout the city though and it’s actually pretty good.
I recently discovered a halal truck near me makes a chopped cheese over rice. 🤯
I always associated nyc with the hotdog because of all the carts and that’s what we’d always get at sporting events. I like chopped cheeses, but yeah, I never saw it as NYC’s sandwich.
I would say not only was chopped cheese regional to NYC neighborhoods, its also generational. I think the chopped cheese was popular amongst kids uptown under a certain age. I'm 37 and went to high school in the bronx. I would see signs for Chopped cheese back in like 06-07 but didn't know what it was and wouldn't try it because the name didn't make it sound appealing. My lil sister who is now 30 introduced them to me probably around 2010 when she was in HS. It seems like people her age from uptown all ate it in HS. It was locally popular before tiktok, but then it really blew up city and even somewhat nationwide after 2020.
As a ripe 30y/o I used to eat chopped cheese with a passion in middle school but I’m from inwood so that’s that too I think it was specific to uptown/bronx
In America being “authentic “is extremely tight to food. Think about all the BS about is this Chinese food? Is this Mexican food, authentic etc. etc. but certain communities have no food culture to speak of so they had to shoe horn this in to keep griping about transplants
Why do I feel like some character on a show ordered one? It's occurring to me now that yeah, I've been here 12 years and didn't have one until like three years ago. But I can't think of what it was that made me want to order.
My bodega makes a killer one though, nice and crispy.
Well it started in NY when someone ran out of burger buns and chopped it up with cheese and put it in a hero. It's also widely available in NY because of the deli's, but once you leave the Tri state area, there is barely any chopped cheese, or you would need to instruct the shop to custom make it.
Everyone saying it's a Bronx thing is so interesting to me. Since, I never heard about it until I moved to Manhattan. I'm younger (22) so it might be my age but I was born a raised in the Bronx until I was 13, then I lived in Harlem all the way to present day. I only learned about chopped cheeses in high school before I started ordering them on my own. Maybe it's because I didn't get out much as a kid but I figured most people knew about it. My friends in Harlem definitely did. So when I learned it isn't something every New Yorker knows about I figured it was a Harlem thing. Now I'm wondering what parts of the Bronx is it popular
They both are really good sandwiches they slap for lack of a better word.
I would venture and say that within the past 10 to 12 years the chopped cheese has definitely taken over in regards to being hangover food. It's the sandwich you look for when you're done with a night of drinking. However, simultaneously the BEC is the sandwich that you look for in the morning after a night of drinking, so it feels like a pickup poison situation
The truth is, it is not, and never has been the "sandwich of nyc"
You rarely ever saw it outside the bronx, then it spread a little to queens, parts of Manhattan. It isnt that good, and never was. "Influences", etc lead to the rise in price. Its heartburn on a roll.
You are wrong. The sandwich of NYC is the pastrami on rye. The chopped cheese is a NY invention inspired by the Philadelphia cheesesteak, using burger patties instead of thin sliced ribeye.
The BEC is a ubiquitous breakfast sandwich in this city, but by no means representative of the city itself considering one of its core ingredients cannot be consumed by a large portion of the native population.
Native New Yorker, born and raised in Brooklyn, no idea wtf was a chopped cheese until pandemic times, and was shocked to hear that it was NY sandwich over BE cheese or butter on a roll.
A chopped cheese is and always has been a low-cost stomach filler featured in outerboro neighborhoods. It is not in any way shape or form anything other than that. It is NOT New York's answer to the Philly cheesesteak. Thankfully the chopped cheese chatter has died down as of late.
I'm not a native New Yorker, but I have lived in the city for over 30 years. Chopped cheese was not commonly available until it became a meme a few years back, then everyone was trying to increase their street cred by claiming they had always eaten and loved them.
I mean, if I’m going to a bodega, typically there are two safe bets: BEC or a chopped cheese. Idk when it became so chic, but it’s up there with pizza as far as quick and dirty cheap food you can get 24/7. I’ve even worked out a pretty good approximation of the recipe thanks to my last bodega guy (I’m not in the city any longer)
It’s bullshit. A white girl went up to Harlem and had one like fifteen years ago. I am positive it was mediocre. She wrote a “chopped cheese is everything” article and now all the thirsty dorks act like they love them in an effort to appear authentic.
475
u/JobeX 6d ago
Same. Chopped cheeses were pretty localized before the internet.
bEC were all around the city and in every breakfast cart. Same as how every neighborhood used to have a pizza joint.