how to eat a fake sandwich

The fake deli on Leonard Street opened about a year ago. I call it “fake” because, on that very first day, it was already advertising a “Leonard classic” sandwich.How could this be? A “classic” is supposed to withstand the test of time. But there it was on the menu—probably because somebody thought a deli was supposed to have a “classic” sandwich, so they went ahead and invented one. Looking around, I saw that the interior design followed the exact same logic. Everything appeared copy-pasted from someone’s idea of what a deli was supposed to look like, with none of the human character that actually creates a deli. Instead of a bodega cat, there were rows of private-equity-backed protein snacks. Instead of a foreign soccer game on the television, the wallpaper was covered in nonsensical phrases like “yum, fun, delicious!”After some internet sleuthing, I discovered that the Leonard deli was actually operated by a billion-dollar multinational conglomerate, and that’s where the pieces…