If you’ve been waiting for chicken ’n waffles to come to Worcester, your time has arrived! But wait a sec. Is it breakfast? Or dinner? The Usual’s got the answer and has brought it to Shrewsbury Street.

This alone was enough to put The Usual on the must-try list. Luck was not with us on our first attempt to get a table; the wait time seemed intolerable. But on a Sunday afternoon, we were finally able to get in. Mo, our server, welcomed us with large glasses of water she would be destined to refill over and over.

After scanning the dining room and sizing up the menu, I’ll admit to mistaking The Usual for a Niche Hospitality product – it has a similar premium-tater-tot-cum-craft-brew ethos going, this time applied to the dining genre one might classify simply as “The Sandwich.” Occupying the same location as The Fix, it would seem logical to look at one as a spin-off of the other, kind of like those sitcoms from the Golden Age of TV. But this is the Golden Age of Worcester dining, and The Usual is set to elevate the humble sandwich with something it calls “creative sandwiching.”

With that lofty mission statement in mind, I decided to leave waffles to one of my dining companions and dive right into one of the “Unusual” sandwiches, the Bahn Mi. The name suggested Vietnamese, but with sliced turkey being the dominant protein, I was really challenging the chef. The last time I ordered a turkey sandwich, I was served mushy deli loaf. It was a total nightmare of misbegotten food technology. Mo assured me The Usual’s was real turkey.

And she was spot-on. The Bahn Mi loaded up a long hoagie bun with multiple layers of sliced turkey meat – the real thing – and topped it with strips of crispy pork belly and cucumber and jalapeño pepper slices. Fresh cilantro leaves, a taste I love, dominated one side of the sandwich more than the other, and pho aioli credentialed it Vietnamese. Just don’t ask me what pho aioli is – I was too busy working on my sandwich to ask.

Creative sandwiching has to start with quality bread, right? My hoagie bun was just that – rich in flavor and moist inside, with a deep-brown crispy exterior. I ordered my Bahn Mi with spicy fries; there were plenty for sharing and so tasty none were left behind.

The Usual’s menu also has a “Build Your Usual” section, where you get to specify each of your sandwich’s components from sub-menus listing bread, protein and topping selections. A friend built his own with Philly Style Steak on a ciabatta roll with sautéed onions and peppers.

First, let’s be clear – the flavor of the meat was delicious.

But even I, a lifelong New Englander, know how proud and particular Philadelphia is about its sandwich. First and foremost, the steak must be sliced thin – paper thin. The Usual could more accurately have called its chunky sandwich meat “steak tips.” Here in Worcester, we’d call it a good steak sandwich.
From the non-sandwich “Knife & Fork” section of the menu, let’s turn our attention, finally, to Chicken and Waffles. This dish is a major construction project. The base was composed of one thick Belgian waffle; no skimpy Eggo’s at The Usual. Level 2 featured spicy, battered deep-fried chicken wings and drumsticks. And finally, it was all topped with creamy coleslaw topped with bread-and-butter pickle chips.

Someone had to order this dining decadence, and I’m glad Mitch was there to oblige. It came with a cup of warm bourbon maple syrup that he poured over the entire stack; it served to unite these contrasting flavors with elegance.

“The chicken has a flavorful spiciness that plays well with the sweetness of the vanilla bourbon maple syrup,” my friend enthused. “The tender chicken is piled on a fluffy waffle and topped with crispy slaw and sliced pickles, creating a nice balance of textures.”

Elegance. I realize that’s a stretch when we’re talking Chicken and Waffles. But at The Usual, all bets are off.

Anyone can slap together an air-bread sandwich. I grew up on mass-produced bologna and cheese sandwiches, never dreaming of “creative sandwiching.” I suspect that’s true of legions of people who have packed a lunch to make it through the school or work day.

We have a lot of catching-up to do, and people at The Usual are happy to assist.

Bernie Whitmore