The unexpected origins of Houston's favourite po' boy

It's a mashup of an Italian-style hoagie and a Southern po' boy, with a distinctly delicious Middle Eastern twist.

In 2007, I was a recent newcomer to Houston, a humid Texas city on the Gulf of Mexico that felt as foreign to me as if I had moved around the globe. Unsurprisingly, this incredibly diverse city was teeming with international culinary influences. There was Mexican food from across the border; fresh Vietnamese flavours brought by refugees in the 1970s; and New Orleans-style food from people who moved here after Hurricane Katrina. Middle Eastern food was everywhere too, from vast emporiums stocked with brined olives, tabbouleh and vats of hummus to street vendors serving freshly made kebabs. But Houston's most distinctive sandwich was something entirely different: a mashup of an Italian-style hoagie and a Southern po' boy, with a distinctly delicious Middle Eastern twist.

A take on the popular New Orleans-style sandwich, its Texan cousin, the Houston po' boy is layered with sliced ham, salami, provolone cheese, mayo and spicy dill pickle slices, before being slathered in chow chow, a Southern relish made of cabbage, green tomatoes and hot peppers. But what sets the sandwich apart is its creator: Jalal Antone, the Louisiana-born, Texas-raised son of Lebanese and Syrian immigrants. His version of a chow chow recipe had a bold Middle Eastern influence, swapping out traditional mustard and celery seeds for paprika and turmeric, giving the relish a striking orange hue and a deeper, spiced complexity.

Antone dreamed of starting a Middle Eastern import store but was unsure of how it would be received by Houstonians at the time. In 1962, he finally opened Antone's Import Company on Taft Street, selling imported spices, olives, hummus, falafel and tabouli. At the time, most of Houston's half a million residents were unfamiliar with Middle Eastern food. To win them over, he devised a simple but effective solution: a sandwich. 

"Houstonians were eating burgers in those days," explains Craig Lieberman, CEO of Antone's. "The story is that he asked his friends 'How do I sell a product to Houstonians?' They said, 'Come up with a chow chow recipe and put that on your sandwich'."

Antone sourced French bread from a local bakery, layered it with his imported meats and cheeses and added his signature spiced chow chow. The result? A sandwich that became a Houston staple. 

By the late 1960s, Antone's had become a wild success, with people flocking there from far and wide. A postcard dating from Antone's early years describes the store as a "tempting world of foreign foods" while a 1965 Houston Chronicle article notes that the store was stocked with cheeses, olives, eels and even squid pickled in their own ink. But what kept people coming back were the sandwiches.

Restaurant critic Alison Cook remembers eating the affordable, filling Antone's Original sandwiches as a student at Rice University in 1966, describing the experience in a 2017 Houston Chronicle article. "It was founded to cater primarily to the local Syrian and Lebanese community, but the po' boys made it a mecca for Houstonians of all stripes. To my impressionable 19-year-old brain, the rambling Antone's space was an exotic wonderland, chockablock with foodstuffs from the Middle East and beyond, festooned with sausages and crammed with cheeses I'd never heard of. In a city where steakhouses, seafood palaces and Italian American spots ruled the dining scene, Antone's pointed the way to a wider world."

Through the 1970s and 80s, the Houston po' boy cemented itself as a local lunchtime staple, on par with tacos and barbecue. Antone's success sent a message to the owners of other local Middle Eastern restaurants that if you sold a Houston po' boy, you could also sell everything from baba ganoush to zaatar, and a new type of sandwich was born. Inspired by Antone's, imitators like Droubi's and Kojak's built empires of their own, each with their own take on the sandwich and a slightly different spin on the signature chow chow.

"Some of Houston's most iconic restaurants were started by immigrants and kind of took on their own path based on a mix of their family recipes combined with what people in Houston wanted and were familiar with," says Houston-based food writer Megha McSwain. "These were really adventurous flavours for people at the time. The story of how they moved forward by creating something unique is why they've lasted so long."

Although Antone's original import store is long gone, the Houston po' boy lives on. Antone's Famous Po' Boys still has two locations in Houston – one inside The Galleria, the city's massive megamall, and another in the Heights neighbourhood, where you can grab a sandwich alongside Lebanese tabouli and dolmas. 

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If you can't make it to a sandwich shop, Antone's po' boys are sold in grocery stores across Texas, including H-E-B, Randall's, Kroger, and Brookshire Brothers. They're even stocked in hospital cafes and at Texan universities like Baylor and The University of Texas. If you're looking for a taste of Antone's at home, their proprietary chow chow can be bought by the jar at local supermarkets along with their pickles.

Though Houston's food scene continues to evolve, the po' boy remains a symbol of the city's culinary melting pot – a sandwich born from Middle Eastern ingenuity, shaped by Southern tradition and beloved by generations of Houstonians.

"I can't tell you how many Texans grew up on Antone's," says Lieberman. "We still use the same bread from Royal Bakery and the same recipes that Jalal created; it's a very nostalgic and beloved Texas brand."

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