I’ve had a Reuben let me down. Order one, full of hope (this could be the one) but what what you get is limp rye bread losing a battle against wet sauerkraut, corned beef that spent too long under a heat lamp, and a smear of dressing doing its best to hold the whole disappointing thing together. You eat it because you paid for it, and you quietly lower your expectations for the next one.
That's exactly the frame of mind one reviewer arrived with when they sat down at Nine Irish Brothers. Writing for the Purdue Exponent, they noted that their dining companion ordered our Reuben and "did not have high hopes" — they had "high Reuben standards" and had been burned before, specifically by soggy bread and sauerkraut that turned everything to mush. What happened next is the kind of thing that makes a dish legendary among regulars: they really enjoyed the sandwich. "The toast held up and the flavors complimented each other."
That response — earned skepticism turned into genuine satisfaction — is one we hear often. Our Reuben is the second best-selling item on the menu, behind only our famous Tiger Mike's Fish & Chips. People come back for it specifically. Customers tell us the corned beef is "very tender, piled high." Others say they can't wait to return "especially for a Reuben and pub chips." It has been ordered at birthday celebrations, first dates, and regular Tuesday lunches by people who have simply decided this is the one.
A Brief, Contested History
The Reuben sandwich has two competing origin stories, and both are worth telling because they say something about what a great sandwich can do to a room.
The most widely accepted version traces the sandwich to Omaha, Nebraska, in 1928. The story goes that Reuben Kulakofsky — a grocer and regular at a late-night poker game held at the Blackstone Hotel — asked for something to eat after a long hand. Bernard Schimmel, son of the hotel's owner and a man trained at culinary school in Lausanne, Switzerland, obliged. He piled corned beef and sauerkraut on dark rye bread, mixed Thousand Island dressing into the kraut, added Swiss cheese, and grilled the whole thing. The poker players approved. The sandwich stayed on the hotel menu. The rest is history.
A rival story pins the origin to New York City and a deli owner named Arnold Reuben, who reputedly assembled an early version around 1914 for a late-night customer using whatever he had behind the counter. New Yorkers have never stopped arguing for their version.
Whatever the true origin, the formula that emerged is the same: good corned beef, good sauerkraut, good bread, Swiss cheese, and a creamy dressing — five components that only work when each one is right. Change any of them, cut any corner, and the whole thing collapses. That's why so many Reubens disappoint. And that's why ours doesn't.
Five Decisions That Make the Difference
Every element of our Reuben is a deliberate choice. Here's why each one matters.
The corned beef. We start with whole corned beef brisket and slow-cook it until it's tender enough to pull apart by hand. That's not a shortcut — it's the long way, done right. Hand-pulled corned beef has a texture that sliced deli meat simply can't match: irregular, shredded pieces that catch the dressing and sauerkraut in every bite rather than sliding off in a single stack. The slow cooking process also means the fat has time to render and the flavors have time to deepen. This is the foundation of the sandwich, and it earns its place.
The sauerkraut. We use center cabbage leaves for our sauerkraut — not because it's the easiest choice, but because it's the best one. The interior leaves of the cabbage head are more tender, more flavorful, and better suited to fermentation than the outer leaves, which can be tough and bitter. The result is a sauerkraut with a clean, bright tang and a satisfying crunch that holds its texture even under heat. That crunch is what keeps the sandwich from going soggy — which, as our skeptical reviewer discovered, is the thing that separates a great Reuben from a mediocre one.
The bread. Fresh marble rye. Not standard rye, which can be dense and one-dimensional, but marble rye — a swirl of light and dark dough that delivers the characteristic rye flavor alongside a slightly more open crumb that toasts beautifully. The bread needs to be structurally sound enough to contain everything inside it while also yielding cleanly when you bite. Fresh marble rye does exactly that.
The Swiss cheese and Thousand Island dressing. Swiss cheese melts where it needs to and holds its mild, nutty character through the heat. It doesn't compete with the corned beef — it harmonizes with it. The Thousand Island dressing provides the creamy, slightly sweet counterpoint that makes the whole combination work: richness against the tang of the kraut, sweetness against the salt of the beef.
The panini press. We finish the Reuben on a panini press, which does two things that a flat griddle or oven can't. It applies even heat and pressure across the entire sandwich, pressing all five components into contact with each other and sealing the whole thing together. And it produces a crust on the bread that is genuinely crisp — not merely warm, not toasted in the abstract, but properly crunchy in a way that holds up through the whole sandwich. That's what our reviewer tasted when they said the toast held up. That's why the bread doesn't go soggy.
And Then There Are the Pub Chips
The Reuben at Nine Irish Brothers comes with a very generous serving of our pub chips, and we want to be clear: these are not an afterthought. They are not fries. They are not potato chips from a bag.
Our pub chips are thick disc-cut potatoes — sliced to a width that creates two textures in the same bite: a shatteringly crisp, golden exterior and a hot, tender, flaky interior that practically steams when you pull one apart. They are salted properly, which means just enough to make you reach for another one. The Purdue Exponent described them as having "a crisp exterior and a warm fluffy inside" and noted that even as an appetizer, the portion was generous for four people. As a side, they are more than ample.
A Reuben of this caliber deserved a side worth eating alongside it. The pub chips are that side (however, you can always substitute the chips for a side of champ, veggies, cole slaw, a side salad, cup of soup, or even more kraut!).
