Couple's relationship starts with prom date, keeps on 40 years into owning The Sandwichery

Restaurant owners Patrick and Sandy Watson spent almost four decades making deli delights for their downtown Redding lunch crowd.

This summer, the deli duo will observe the 40th anniversary of their Redding restaurant, The Sandwichery on Tehama Street.

Patrick Watson said he knows exactly how they’re going to celebrate: “We’re going to show up for work,” he said, chuckling.

Almost every weekday since 1984, the married couple served up hot and cold sandwiches for lunch to downtown workers and shoppers, people on a break from jury duty and residents looking for a pleasant low-key lunch spot with indoor and outdoor seating. “She’s management. I’m labor,” Watson said.

Their most popular menu item is the Californian ($11.25): Turkey, avocado and cheese on a choice of wheat, white, sourdough or rye bread or a French roll, he said.

Other best sellers are the club sandwich, made with crisp pastrami instead of bacon; and the poor boy, packed with Italian deli meat. Each costs $11.25, Watson said.

The restaurant boasts 4.6 out of five stars on Yelp, with 130 reviews listed. Most customers gave The Sandwichery a perfect five stars, and praised the shop's big servings and fresh ingredients. Several customers on Yelp commented how nice it was to visit a friendly mom and pop restaurant.

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Not all the couple’s favorite customers can type an online review.

“Well-behaved canine friends” lunch on the patio at any of The Sandwichery’s five outdoor umbrella tables, located behind the restaurant with a view of the Tehama-Pine Street alley and parking area. With their human companion’s permission, dog guests get free meat scraps and a water bowl, Watson said.

From a 5-year business goal to a milestone anniversary

Being around for the 40th anniversary wasn’t on the couple’s menu when they moved to Shasta County in 1984. By that time, the Watsons were in their 30s and had been together for more than 15 years, Patrick Watson said.

The couple wanted to be close to Sandy Watson's parents when the latter retired and moved to Trinity County, so they sold their Pepsi distributorship in Arcata and bought the Redding sandwich shop for $20,000. “This is what we could afford,” Patrick Watson said.

At the time, it was called Sandwich Indulgence. Open at the same location since 1975, the deli had three previous owners in the nine years before they bought it, he said.

The Watsons didn’t bank on keeping the business for much longer than those previous owners. “The plan was five years and we were gone,” he said.

They put down roots when "we realized we’d started to make some money," Sandy Watson said. "We just like what we’re doing. We decided to stay, and we like Redding," she said.

They also like working together, they said.

Ingredients to making their lifetime relationship work

The two went to McKinleyville High School. Sandy’s father was a teacher and her mother, the school’s librarian. Patrick’s father was a logger, he said.

In their youth, they developed an affection for Lake Shasta while on vacations with friends, they said.

But they didn't know each other until mutual friends set them up on their first date: Their 1968 senior prom.

Neither reported falling for the other that evening.

“It was just a courtesy date," Sandy Watson said.

"He was in a different crowd than I was in high school. He was the one who hung out in the drive-in ... all the time. I was the one in student government and the popular crowd," she said.

Patrick joined the Army a few months after the prom and Sandy studied library science at the College of the Redwoods in Eureka. But they stayed in touch and when Patrick Watson left the Army in 1971, the couple started dating again, they said.

They married in 1973, and spent a decade moving from town to town in Humboldt County and for two years in Germany while Patrick re-joined the Army. “We got bored” living in the same place. That’s why the plan was to leave Redding after five years," Patrick Watson said.

The Sandwichery’s interior is decorated with Patrick Watson's collection of military memorabilia, including antiques from World War I and World War II. He collected most of the pieces himself, but some are from customers who insisted they belonged on his walls, he said.

Now 74 years old, they're still enjoying their jobs, their sandwich shop and Redding; but the couple's life anchor is still each other, they said.

And dogs.

“When we got married…we got two (dogs). We’ve had two ever since. I’ve got a tattoo that says, ‘Loves dogs, tolerates people,’” Patrick Watson said.

The couple’s current four-legged family members include a Dutch shepherd, a pitbull Labrador mix and three cats. “Every one is spoiled rotten. If you’re not going to spoil 'um, you shouldn’t have 'um,” Watson said.

If you go: The Sandwichery

Cost: Lunches range in price from $7.25 to $11.25

Hours: 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. weekdays

Where: 1341 Tehama St. in downtown Redding

Phone: 530-246-2020

Jessica Skropanic is a features reporter for the Record Searchlight/USA Today Network. She covers science, arts, social issues and news stories. Follow her on Twitter @RS_JSkropanic and on Facebook. Join Jessica in the Get Out! Nor Cal recreation Facebook group. To support and sustain this work, please subscribe today. Thank you.

This article originally appeared on Redding Record Searchlight: Sandwichery owners celebrate 40 years running Redding restaurant