They clocked 11,300 miles, and had the usual setbacks (their bag of roasting marshmallows melted into one giant blob at a campsite in Utah), and triumphs (they were awed by the transcendent fast food at In-N-Out Burger, the anti-McDonald's, on the way to Lake Tahoe).
You can see black-and-white photos of the tour on the walls of the new storefront, a few doors down from London Grill. And the fresh, clean (if hardly daring) menu sandwiches are named for stops: The Santa Monica is bacon, lettuce, tomato, mayo, and avocado on multigrain bread; the Denver is homemade chicken salad with walnuts, grapes, and greens on a croissant, or whatever.
There's a fuller, more didactic story, of course, of the origins of Rybread cafe. And while it's not quite as romantic, it has its own logic - and connects a few more dots.
In the unabridged version, Ryan's father, Dennis, is a major player. He'd spent his career on the corporate side of Wawa, eventually as part of the team that developed its line of Shorti, Junior, and Classic hoagies, which are on the corporate side of hoagies.
But he'd always had an itch, himself. Ryan recalls him musing about opening a bed-and-breakfast. Dennis and his wife, Roseanne (and Ryan's sister Meghann) also dabbled in mom-and-pop catering: the homey chicken salad at Rybread is Roseanne's recipe; the crab cake - more of a crab salad, almost - is Dennis'.
And so it came to pass, on this stretch of Fairmount Avenue near 23d, that the new coffee-sandwich shop opened eight weeks ago in a former hair salon - a partnership between father and son, housing the deferred dreams and fresh ambitions of the family Pollock.
