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LATINX SPISSUE: On a Hard Roll, Por Favor Words by Dani Flores. Photos by Regina Sung.

Joy comes in the shape of a steak and cheese sandwich. Once I was old enough to navigate the rumbling streets of Fair Haven, my first stop was Victor’s, my go-to corner store on the intersection and Grand Ave and Blatchley Ave. Victor’s was a place of relief for all the local kids. My dad had this habit of taking me out to eat at nice restaurants every week. In those weeks when he didn’t have a job or was on a budget, he’d distract me from the whole situation by buying me half a steak and cheese for $3.50. A steak and cheese from Victor’s makes you feel rich in every sense of the word. You come here after skipping school lunch, when your mother got her paycheck and gave you $7 for the combo, or when there wasn’t anything left in the fridge except for some eggs you didn’t want to cook yourself.

Victor's — which has since been renamed Justin's Deli Market — on the corner of Grand Ave and Blatchley Ave.

When I walk into Victor’s with a ten-dollar bill I had been saving all month, I step up and the words roll of my tongue, “Steakandcheesehardrollcombocontodoporfavor.” (Don’t ever forget the por favor). In another neighborhood that would translate to:, “may I please have a steak and cheese sandwich combo with everything? On a hard roll, please.” I have learned the language of ordering your usual. The cook nods his head, I grab my Snapple and hand the cashier $7 and wait. Life will be better as soon as I bite into my steak and cheese.

What’s so special about a sandwich from Victor’s? Maybe it’s the handful of thinly cut lettuce, the three tomato slices that are always a uniform shape, the thin layer of cheese that’s perfectly melted, or the essential shredded steak topped with mildly acidic vinegar that draws you in for another bite.

Victor’s sandwich combo never failed to erase any memory of hunger for only $7. I grew up focusing on grocery store prices more than the food itself. My family often didn’t have enough money for groceries, or an apartment in the safest neighborhood. I remember walking down streets littered with broken glass from alcohol bottles, McDonald’s cups and wrappers that get caught in your shoe. I slept without silent nights and heard conversations between angry strangers that I wanted to forget.

Victor's combo makes you do just that. Forget. It consists of a sub of your choosing, an order of small fries, and a 16oz beverage from the selection of fizzy drinks in the fridge, all for $7. The combo makes me feel like a carefree millionaire as I eat it staring at the leak on my kitchen roof.

Living in Fair Haven came with accounting for a lot of irregularities: taking a detour because of a car accident, going to the autobody shop because someone slammed into your parked car, and finding a new recycling bin after a neighbor stole yours. After an ordinary day of irregularities, I can always step into Victor’s and ask the cook for my regular steak and cheese, wait while I stand next to the canned beans until curiosity prompts down the soda aisle, and I decide that I might as well pick up a Snapple.

To an outsider, a Victor’s steak and cheese is not as impressive as I think it is. “It’s just a sandwich,” “it tastes like fucking discount meat,” “(insert restaurant) is waaayyy better,” are some things I’ve been told whenever I bring someone along to Victor’s. If any of my friends at Yale ever ask for food recommendations in Fair Haven, I will not mention Victor’s.

Victor’s is not a tourist attraction; the steak and cheese does not draw in internet foodies or lines of young people who want to support local New Haven businesses. It has plain, unattractive white walls and aisles of canned meat and ramen noodles, not the perfect location for a photoshoot. The steak and cheese brings in kids like me and my sister, whose bellies are given a taste of normalcy when we crunch on the Italian bread and our salty fries smothered in ketchup.

Victor’s has a special place in every Fair Haven child’s stomach for a devastating reason. I don’t know the exact statistic, but well over half of kids in Fair Haven live in poverty or are considered low-income. I never thought I was poor. I could comfortably talk to my friends about my family running out of money and having to eat rice and beans every day; we’d laugh it off because we all had those months. “I hate beans, they make me gassy,” we’d say and laugh for an inappropriate amount of time. Secretly, we cried the same tears when we knew cookies, ice cream, and a steak sandwich only existed in our dreams. We ran to Victor’s as soon as there was an extra dollar in our pockets or another plate of beans waiting for us at home. We worked as soon as we could to afford ourselves the love of a steak and cheese sandwich.

Corner stores are meant to serve the neighborhood, the kids on bikes with nowhere else to go. Any other steak and cheese is simply a sandwich. I’m certain there are higher quality steak and cheeses in the world. Sure, you can buy a piece of candy for a quarter each and two bags of chips for $1, but why would you do that when a steak and cheese from Victor’s is different? It’s a meal.

Some might ask, “Why don’t we save our money for groceries?” Well, I think everyone deserves a steak and cheese. Many parents in Fair Haven work all day, so there isn’t always someone to cook for you, or that warmth of knowing someone is adding seasoning to steak just for you, which is something a lot of people take for granted. A sandwich at Victor’s is made to order, they call out your name and you know the steak and cheese is yours.

Too many young people in Fair Haven face food insecurity, so being able to treat yourself to a sandwich is the best form of self-care I can imagine. You can’t control where you live, or how much money your parents make, but you can buy a steak and cheese. It reminds me I still have some type of control over my life.

A steak and cheese is warm like a hug. The feeling you get when someone embraces you after you’ve been walking in below freezing temperatures. My parents often advised me not to walk alone around my neighborhood because I was a small, lost-looking teenager in a neighborhood infamous for high crime rates. Imagine being scared to circle around the block. To numb this sense of insecurity, I’d walk miles around my neighborhood for practice and I learned to avoid any troubling interactions with strangers. Eventually I got used to it, walking fast with my head down, no eye contact with anyone, always having your hostile face on. I wish I didn’t have to do that.

In Victor’s, there’s always someone with you. Whether it’s the cook, cashier, or another kid waiting for their sandwich, you’re safe. The steak and cheese takes about seven minutes to prepare, twelve if it’s a busy day. In those minutes, I stand with my hands in my pockets and just breathe. I stand against an aisle of dog food and I know the cans will watch my back. The steak and cheese, protected like a baby in its wax paper tightly secured by a piece of masking tape, accompanies you back home in its black plastic bag, swinging around with the promise of keeping you full until the next morning.

Top: Anthony and Sergio — employees at Justin's.

Fair Haven is a small, predominantly Latine and Black neighborhood in New Haven between the Quinnipiac and Mill Rivers. Home once to the Quinnipiac peoples, then factory laborers, and now hungry and hopeful, bright and beautiful children.

Once the school bell has dismissed us, you can see the groups of Fair Haven kids walking down Blatchley Ave., dispersing when we reach our respective corner stores. We leave the shops swinging our black plastic bags, rolling the cold soda can against our sweaty foreheads. We walk quickly, not because we feel uneasy walking through the streets, but because we can’t wait to take our first bite. Life will be better.