The Reuben: America's Most Contested Sandwich
There are sandwiches with disputed origins and then there is the Reuben, which has two fully formed, completely incompatible creation myths, each with its own cast of characters, its own supporting documentation, and its own city of origin. Omaha and New York have been arguing about this for decades. Let's look at what the evidence actually says.
The Omaha Claim
The Omaha story centers on Reuben Kulakofsky, a Lithuanian-born grocer who allegedly invented the sandwich around 1925 during a late-night poker game at the Blackstone Hotel. The game was a regular affair among local businessmen. Charles Schimmel, who owned the hotel, was apparently so taken with the sandwich that he put it on the menu. In 1956, a Blackstone Hotel employee named Fern Snider entered the recipe in a national sandwich competition. She won. Omaha claims this as institutional validation.
There is genuine documentation here. The Blackstone Hotel was real. The poker game is corroborated by multiple accounts. Kulakofsky's family has maintained the story for generations. The 1956 competition win is verifiable.
The New York Claim
The New York counter-story attributes the sandwich to Arnold Reuben, who ran Reuben's Restaurant on Madison Avenue starting in 1908. In this version, a young actress named Annette Seelos came in hungry one night around 1914, and Reuben improvised a sandwich for her: ham, turkey, Swiss cheese, and coleslaw on rye. He named it after himself.
Note what's missing from this version: corned beef and sauerkraut. The New York "Reuben" as originally described bears almost no resemblance to the sandwich we recognize today. Arnold Reuben's grandson has been a consistent spokesperson for this claim, and it has gotten coverage, but the actual recipe doesn't hold up.
The Verdict
I'll give this to Omaha. Here's why: the sandwich we actually eat — corned beef, Swiss, sauerkraut, Thousand Island on rye, griddled — matches the Kulakofsky version, not the Arnold Reuben version. The New York claim relies on name similarity and a sandwich with completely different ingredients. That's not a claim, that's a coincidence.
The Canonical Reuben
The sandwich that Fern Snider submitted to that 1956 competition is the gold standard. Here is what it requires:
The bread must be rye, marble rye if you're feeling generous. It needs enough structural integrity to handle the weight of wet filling without collapsing, and the caraway flavor is load-bearing — it cuts through the fat of the corned beef and the acidity of the sauerkraut in a way that plain sourdough cannot.
The meat is corned beef, not pastrami. This is not a small distinction. Corned beef is brine-cured and boiled, giving it a soft, yielding texture and a clean, saline flavor. Pastrami is smoked after brining, which adds a different dimension — excellent on its own, but it changes the sandwich's character. A Reuben made with pastrami is called a Rachel, and while it's good, it is not a Reuben. Call things what they are.
The cheese is Swiss — specifically, a proper Swiss with some age and funk, not the plastic-wrapped domestic stuff. Gruyère is technically an upgrade. It has more depth, melts more evenly, and holds up better under the broiler. If a restaurant uses Gruyère I respect the choice even if it's not traditional.
The sauerkraut must be drained. This is where 80 percent of bad Reubens fail. Sauerkraut holds water. If you don't press it dry, it soaks through the bread and turns the bottom slice into gray paste by the time it reaches the table. Drain, press, drain again.
The dressing is where reasonable people disagree most. Thousand Island is traditional and correct for the classic version. Russian dressing (which is sharper, with more horseradish) is an acceptable variant. What is not acceptable is omitting the dressing entirely. Without the creamy, tangy element to mediate between the salt of the meat and the acid of the kraut, the sandwich is brutally one-note.
Why It Became Iconic
The Reuben succeeded because it is one of the few sandwiches that achieves genuine flavor balance across every component. The meat is salty and rich. The kraut is acidic and slightly funky. The cheese is mild and creamy. The bread is earthy. The dressing is sweet and tangy. Everything has a counterpart. Nothing dominates.
It also benefits from the griddle. The griddling of the bread creates a physical barrier — a toasted crust that slows moisture migration and adds a textural contrast that raw rye can't provide. The Reuben is not a cold sandwich. It is definitively a hot sandwich, and any restaurant serving it cold is serving it wrong.
The Reuben became a deli standard in the second half of the twentieth century because it was forgiving to produce at scale, it used ingredients that held well, and it photographed well in menu photography. These are not artistic reasons, but they are real ones. Great sandwiches survive because great restaurants serve them reliably, and the Reuben's construction is just standardized enough to replicate without losing what makes it work.
Omaha got there first. The rest of us have been eating well ever since.