You probably have things to do and important places to be, but if you really wanted to, you could tell time with a tomato.
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There are only two distinct times of year: tomato season and not tomato season.
And when it’s tomato season, like it is now, that means it’s time to get to Merritt’s Grill in Chapel Hill for North Carolina’s most iconic sandwich. The shop is so singularly special we included it as an Honorable Mention restaurant on our Triangle Top 50 list earlier this year.
The spectrum of seasonality will make you believe in magic, and there is nothing more transportive than the tomato. Suddenly in the summer tomatoes come alive, ripening into a sharp flavor of sweet sunshine and tangy earth. The proper thing to do is slice them thick, sprinkle kind of a lot of salt and pepper and stuff the tomatoes between two mayo-slathered pieces of bread.
At Merritt’s Grill, they take the simple and sublime tomato sandwich and do something devilish. They add more bacon than good sense should allow and enough lettuce to bring things back into balance.
I stopped by Merritt’s Grill in Chapel Hill this week for an On a Budget column, where News & Observer reporters look for notable meals under $25 out the door.
Merritt’s has been open for nearly a century and has ascended to icon status as one of North Carolina’s most famous sandwich shops. The reason for that fame is its BLT.
At Merritt’s the BLT comes in three sizes, best broken down by how much bacon they have. The Single has seven pieces of bacon, the Double has nine and is encouraged for splitting and the Triple has a full pound of bacon and is described on a sign by the register as “A Challenge.”
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I opted for the single, because seven pieces of bacon is more bacon than I eat in a typical month and seemed plenty for an afternoon sandwich.
But whenever I get to Merritt’s I opt for one personal flourish: Pimento Cheese.
Does a BLT gushing with mayonnaise need pimento cheese? Certainly not. But I promise the truest promise I can muster, it is better with cheese.
The tomato sandwich is often described as a “standing up sandwich,” which means that if you built it right, with lots of salt and mayo and squishy white bread, that juicy tomato is going to start dripping and running and you’ll do your best just to hold on.
A Merritt’s BLT is like that. Like the tectonic plates of an early earth, one bite of the BLT sends bacon and tomato sliding every which way. It’s a sandwich that isn’t held so much as gripped and wrestled. You may notice that you’re barely breathing as you’re trying to eat your sandwich fast enough that it doesn’t fall like confetti onto the sun-dappled iron patio tables out back.
Yet, this is one of summer’s great joys in the Triangle, where Merritt’s has become a BLT temple. Diners from all over, or just down the street, make at least one pilgrimage to this neighborhood deli for a bite of summer’s best flavor, and a bit of nostalgia.
A single BLT is $10.99, plus the $2.99 addition of pimento cheese on my sandwich. My total with tax and tip came to $17.27.
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1009 S. Columbia St., Chapel Hill | merrittsblt.com