Mention Mary's Kitchen Port – Front Street's cozy carry-out restaurant and kitchen shop – in local conversation, and someone will invariably ask: “Have you tried the Gobbler?”

The store's most popular sandwich – a combination of turkey, shredded cheddar, lettuce, tomato and mayonnaise on a salt-sprinkled focaccia bread – has become a lunchtime staple of downtown workers and one of the best-selling sandwiches in the city. Mary Boudjalis-King, who first launched her eponymous company in 1981 as a catering venture called Catering by Mary, conceived of the sandwich as a "comfort food" dish featuring many of the same ingredients it utilizes today, only with sprouts and a croissant bun (it was then called the French Gobbler).

As the years passed, Boudjalis-King's children – Mike Boudjalis and Kathy Baier, who run Mary's Kitchen Port – realized customers were clamoring for a healthier bread option. So in the '90s, they decided to make the transition to a bread-flour recipe and began baking focaccia daily in-house, topping off the golden loaves with a dusting of sea salt. It was that switch – the distinct, salty crust – that accelerated sales and soon cemented the Gobbler's status in local foodie lore.

“I remember when we used to sell 50 sandwiches. That was a great day,” Boudjalis recalls on a recent morning, preparing for the second of three typical daily bread-baking shifts. Boudjalis wakes at 4 or 5am every morning to get the first batch of bread out by 7am; shortly after the store opens at 10am, the batch will sell out and another will immediately head into the oven in preparation for the next wave of customers.

Today, Boudjalis estimates daily sales of the Gobbler as “in the hundreds,” noting the store on average bakes 300-500 pieces of bread every day (most loaves are used for Gobblers; some are also sold individually to customers). The store goes through a weekly average of 400 pounds of turkey, sourced from Michigan farmers, as well as countless cases of lettuce, tomatoes and Hellmann's mayonnaise.

Attesting to Mary's Kitchen Port's popularity with local professionals, the greatest Gobbler sales days are Tuesdays and Thursdays, while Saturday is the slowest. The sandwich also seems to help boost other store sales – Boudjalis notes overall revenues remain close to a “fifty-fifty” split between Mary's deli side and its retail side, which features kitchen accessories and appliances.

While customers may customize Gobblers with the kitchen, most opt to pick up their sandwiches pre-packaged from the store's deli case. Sizable enough to be split into two meals, the sandwich has a total 597 calories (for those looking to cut calories, Baier recommends removing the bottom pieces of bread – but “never the top,” she smiles, referring to the salted crust).

After so many years on the market – and growing competition from an increasingly crowded restaurant scene – why does a simple turkey sandwich continue to be such a hit? The addictive homemade bread helps, Boudjalis says, but he attributes the Gobbler's success to a deeper draw.

“Think about the first time someone made you a turkey sandwich,” he says. “You had the lettuce, the tomato, the Hellmann's mayo. You were probably a kid. It was probably someone who loved you. It's a memory a lot of us have.”

“That's what I think satisfies people,” Boudjalis concludes. “It's a sandwich that takes you back home.”