Mission City Serving Sandwiches by the Santa Barbara Seashore

It sounds like the setup for a joke: a pizzaman walks into an ice cream parlor and exits as a sandwich shop owner. That’s the story behind the new Mission City Sandwich Shop, a charming new addition to the Mesa (where Sweetie’s most recently scooped frozen treats). Born-and-raised Santa Barbarans Nate and Paige Simandle hope the spot becomes a go-to for those looking for delicious sandwiches in an atmosphere that Nate calls “fun and inviting, comfortable, nostalgic, but not crowded or claustrophobic — the walls won’t have rabbit heads with antlers.”

Since graduating from Santa Barbara City College Culinary School, Simandle has done his time at numerous beloved restaurants, including but not limited to bouchon, Eladio’s, Arch Rock Fish, Kanaloa Seafood, and Yellow Belly. Most recently, he was brought in by Corner Tap owner Chris Chiarappa to help upgrade that spot’s food program in fall of 2023. One of the hits there was his Detroit-style pizza — you know, the rectangular, thick-doughed stuff that gets all cheese-caramelized on its scrumptious edges — so when the Simandles hoped to open a restaurant of their own, they were thinking pizza was the way to go.

Finding the spot for a new pizzeria wasn’t as easy, though. In the meantime, Chiarappa felt like his Sweetie’s dreams were melting (sorry), and he hoped to convert the space into a sandwich shop. At first, he brought in Simandle just for advice, but feeling under pressure with his numerous other projects, from Mesa Burger to all the Lighthouse Coffees in the region, Chiarappa asked him, “Would you consider buying it and doing it yourself?”

That was October 2024 — so an opening in February 2025 is pretty much supersonically speedy for Santa Barbara. It helped that Chiarappa did such a fine upgrade to the space, Simandle points out, but then the product helps, too. “Since we’re making sandwiches, there’s no hood,” he explains. “We didn’t need to install one.” A conveyor oven to heat up sandwiches was plenty. While, yes, the lack of an oven does mean they have to outsource their bread, “We’re getting it from [Hans] Röckenwagner in Santa Monica, one of my hero chefs,” Simandle said. “It’s an honor to be using his stuff.”

Mission City will not be alone — bread coming from Hans Röckenwagner’s bakery delivers products to well-heeled clients such as Whole Foods, Gelson’s, Mendocino Farms, and Peet’s Coffee.

That bread will be featured in 12 signature sandwiches that are as playful as they are delicious. Here’s the clever Instagram post announcing one of them: “Sadly, David Lynch has taken his final bow and slipped behind the velvet curtain, but his art lives on. You won’t need to read Laura Palmer’s diary to figure out that this sandwich is going to deliver a funky flavor situation directly to your cherry pie hole. The ‘Audrey Horne’ — RC Provisions London broil roast beef, our homemade sharp cheddar & horseradish spread, caramelized onions, yellow mustard, Mission City pickle mix (chopped Claussen dill, bread & butter pickles and Mama Lil’s kick-butt peppers), coleslaw, buttery toasted corn rye.” 

Alongside this tasty tribute to Sherilyn Fenn’s most famous role, other offerings give shout-outs to The Naked Gun with an “I Love You Too, Nordberg” (roast turkey, ham, etc.), Napoleon Dynamite with an “Uncle Rico” (roasted chicken), and the Pixies with “Surfer Rosa” (a feta-led veggie number). “Being a Gen X kid, I’ve got a love of ’80s and ’90s stuff cemented in my life,” Simandle says. Now he gets to honor that pop culture with his menu.

In the now, the hope is their mom-and-pop-run shop will catch on. The Simandles certainly have a love for the here — even when they left Santa Barbara for a few years to run a gastropub in Madison, Alabama, they named it the Goodland Pour House. The Mesa location’s walls are adorned with artful takes on the California bear, surfers, seagulls, and, of course, the Queen of the Missions. And then there’s each sandwich, supremely thought through, like the tuna that is not only made with fresh albacore from the Santa Barbara Fish Market, but it’s also blackened. “The chef in me keeps tweaking the menu,” Simandle admits, “But I have to let it go.”

Mission City Sandwich Shop; 1826 Cliff Drive, Suite A; @missioncity_sandwichshop