A New Takeout Window in Oakland Sells Killer French Dip Sandwiches Until 2 a.m.
The Midnight Diners is a regular collaboration between KQED food editor Luke Tsai and graphic novelist Thien Pham. Follow them each week as they explore the hot pot restaurants, taco carts and 24-hour casino buffets that make up the Bay Area’s after-hours dining scene.
When we parked in front of Town Beef at 11 o’clock on a Friday night, we thought maybe we’d come to the wrong place. There wasn’t a line. No one else was eating at the folding tables the restaurant had set up on the sidewalk. The tiny takeout window where we were supposed to place our order was so dimly lit, we weren’t entirely sure if the place was even open.
Had we arrived too late? As the hour crept toward midnight, this whole stretch of North Oakland, near the corner of Broadway and 40th (the old Clove & Hoof building), started to feel a bit like a ghost town. Even the gas station across the street looked like it was closed.
Anyway, if you have similar taste in restaurants as me, just the idea of Town Beef almost sounds too good to be true to begin with. Do you mean to tell me there’s a little sandwich window, just a hop, skip and jump away from Temescal, that sells hot French dip sandwiches? That’s open until 2 a.m. every weekend??
For now, at least, the shop has exactly three items on the menu: the house special, which they describe as an “Oakland-style” French dip sandwich. A vegan mushroom version of that same sandwich. And an electrolyte drink (of course). That’s it! Right away you know what kind of restaurant this is — or at least is trying to be.
During our visit, the crowds of rambunctious drunks who’d surely appreciate a hot beef sandwich at this late hour never materialized. Only one or two other customers pulled up to the window to pick up to-go orders. Mostly, though, that seems to be because the restaurant only just quietly opened a few weeks ago. As soon as we took our first bite of our sandwich, we felt certain it’d only be a matter of time before the place was flooded with business.
Famously, French dip sandwiches were invented not in France but at a restaurant in Los Angeles, either accidentally or on purpose, as a way to put roast beef pan drippings to good use. The only thing “French” about the dish is the crusty roll it comes on. The pleasure of eating the sandwich comes from the combination of flavors and texture you get when you dip the whole thing into a bowl of au jus.
Many of the most enjoyable French dips I’ve had in the Bay Area have come from chain restaurants — Hillstone’s cult-classic version (a favorite among even the fancy-pantsiest of Bay Area chefs) and the now-closed Mission District outpost of Top Round (a chain from LA, naturally). It makes sense, then, that Town Beef, the first restaurant I’m aware of to sling a distinctly “Oakland-style” take on the sandwich, would serve something that feels like its own thing altogether.
The most obvious diversion is the fact that chef-owner Craig Smith grills up pieces of ribeye steak instead using the thin, pink slices of roast beef or prime rib that traditional purveyors favor. This is a proper steak sandwich, then, loaded with caramelized onions and a smear of tangy, garlicky aioli.
All that was already enough to make us regulars, and we haven’t even talked about the most important part — the dip itself. Unlike in a classic French dip, Town Beef actually pre-dips its sandwiches in their flavorful au jus. The result isn’t quite as sopping-wet as, say, a Chicago beef sandwich, but the bread soaks up enough broth to get a little bit soggy in the best possible way.
The kitchen works in a few other California tweaks. The bread is from Acme. The side pickles are crunchy and bracingly tart — green beans, sweet peppers and at least three different colors of carrots, cut into bite-size rounds.
Here’s where I should mention too that service at Town Beef is unfailingly friendly and accommodating, even when the young woman working the window had to listen to the two of us arguing, nonsensically, about Kelly Clarkson for the duration of our meal. She told us, incidentally, that our quiet, sedate experience of the restaurant was quite different from how it was during their 6 o’clock dinner rush, which is why they’d sold out of electrolyte drinks (alas).
Of course we also had to try the vegan sandwich, which they make with four different types of mushrooms (oyster, cremini, maitake and baby bella). And here’s where I lower my voice to a whisper: The mushroom sandwich might be even better than the beef one. At the very least, I liked it almost as much — the texture of the oysters and maitakes, in particular, was incredibly luxurious, and the coconut yogurt–based aioli had an even more pronounced tang.
Had we accidentally stumbled into a fine dining restaurant? Was Carmy showing off again in this episode of The Bear? This is the kind of sandwich you can eat forever without feeling like it’s too heavy or rich. (There’s the option to add mushrooms to the regular beef sandwich, which we agreed was the best of both worlds.)
At this point, Smith himself came over and offered to bring us some extra au jus on the side. What French dip lover could say no to that? The jus here is thicker and richer than the typical kind, loaded with soft onions so that it almost tastes like an extra-savory French onion soup. And, anyway, the whole reason for eating a French dip is for the bread to get real soggy, as a counterpoint to the meaty filling.
In the end, we finished all of our sandwiches down to the last little nub of onion or mushroom that had wedged itself in the crease of the foil wrapper. Even then, we weren’t quite certain we hadn’t dreamed the whole thing up. Did we really sit at that flimsy table in the darkness and eat a sandwich that good, at that time of night? Were we really just outside Temescal, or had we in fact gone through some portal and stumbled into the most fantastical, nonsensically delicious ghost town? When I woke up the next morning, I had to scroll through my phone to make sure the photos I took were still there.
Town Beef is currently open Fridays and Saturdays only, 6 p.m.–2 a.m., at 4001 Broadway. in Oakland.