Restaurant Delivery

Gabriels Sub Shop in College Park

Gabriel’s Sub Shop, the College Park sandwich maker, is celebrating its 50th anniversary this week. But back in 1958, Paul Gabriel didn’t think he would last six months.

Gabriel was 33 years old and working in a Pennsylvania refinery when, after a visit to Florida, he decided to leave Sun Oil for the Sunshine State. His aunt had a submarine-sandwich shop in New Jersey, and he thought that would be a good business — Orlando didn’t seem to have a sub shop.

So he took his aunt’s recipes, left his wife, Doris, and two kids at home until he could get established, and headed for Orlando.
But there was a problem Gabriel didn’t expect:
No one in Orlando, it seemed, knew what a submarine sandwich was.

He knew there might be a problem when he applied to the city for an operating license.

“They didn’t know how to license me because I wasn’t a restaurant,” says Gabriel, 83.

A restaurant, he says, was a place you go and someone waits on you and takes your order. His sub shop, was basically a takeout place. But with no license category for takeout, the city had to call it a restaurant.
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View Story: Orlando Sentinel



3006 Edgewater Dr Orlando, FL 32804