When Mason Hereford opened Turkey and the Wolf to widespread critical acclaim in the city of New Orleans, it was like a butter knife to Charlottesville’s back. It was like Dave Matthews saying he got his start in Nashville.
Hereford, a Charlottesville native and University of Virginia graduate, has won scores of awards for his playful Big Easy sammie shoppe. Charlottesville, meanwhile, couldn’t score a fried bologna sandwich stacked with potato chips (Hereford’s specialty) to save its life.
Until CroZeli Sandwich Shop opened on August 14.
Service industry lifer Chase Rannigan and his wife Paige created CroZeli with the intention of doing “fun takes on classic sandwiches with well-sourced ingredients.”
“Mason has set the bar. I would never compare myself to him—he has a James Beard Award,” Rannigan says. “He was definitely on my radar when we were opening. That was the inspiration for a lot of the menu.”
Rannigan, who’s done stints at Pizza Bella, Shebeen, Fardowners, and private catering outfits, got the James Beard part somewhat wrong. Hereford was a 2019 semi-finalist, not a winner. But he’s getting the whimsical sandwiches part totally right. That starts with CroZeli’s bestseller, the Turkey Crunch, featuring turkey, provolone, shredded lettuce, potato chips, pickles, onions, and dill aioli on a sub roll, and folds right into the Italian Fried Bologna, with mortadella, provolone, shredded lettuce, mustard, mayo, and—you guessed it—potato chips.
“The menu is fairly small, but we’ll revise it and add stuff, look at the numbers and see what has sold and what hasn’t,” Rannigan says.
The limited menu is by design. Rannigan and his wife decided to open CroZeli when they saw the old Morsel Compass space in Crozet come available. The building had suffered a flood and was gutted, but the remaining facilities were serviceable. A small, seasonal sandwich list is the best way to use the space, Rannigan says.
CroZeli keeps it interesting between menu changes with inventive specials. One of the most popular was a chopped cheese with Big Mac vibes. Rannigan’s also done a chicken chopped cheese, a take on a cordon bleu, a turkey Rachel, and a Sloppy Jersey with turkey, Swiss, and cole slaw on marble rye. Apparently, that’s what Jersey folks call a “sloppy Joe.”
“Google it,” Rannigan says. “We couldn’t label it as a sloppy Joe because no one would’ve known what it was.”
Other top CroZeli sellers are the cheesesteak, festooned with both Cheez Whiz and provolone, a traditional Reuben, and a muffuletta with mortadella, ham, salami, provolone, and olive tapenade towered on ciabatta from Carter’s Specialty Breads.
CroZeli also keeps it simple with counter service and no dining room, so your Kitchen Sink with turkey, salami, ham, Swiss, and hot peppers will have to be to-go. “There’s definitely no one else in Crozet doing what we’re doing,” Rannigan says. “We’re a specialty sandwich shop. There’s not really anything to compare it to.”