My second job back in high school was at a gourmet deli & wine shop on the edge of downtown.  We had the most delicious bread, delivered from a local bakery and nearly everyday I would walk home with the day-old loaves tucked under my arm; the taste of grilled cheese sandwiches dancing on my tongue.  It was the summer of bread, and though evidence of my daily carb smorgasbord slowly began to take its toll on my waistline, for those short glorious months I had money to spend on whatever I chose and a seemingly endless supply of potato rosemary bread to go with it.

After I went away to college and my high school bread baby quickly gave way to a much sleeker starving college physic, the deli shuttered its doors taking those yeast infused temptations with them.  Over the years, bakeries came and went all along 1st street but the quintessential deli seemed to be ever elusive until Christa’s Sandwichboard set up shop.

Christa’s is bigger than it looks from the outside and like all good deli’s, comes stocked with a cold case full of cakes and salads. The decor is vintage cottage quaintness at it’s best with a bit of Victorian flavor thrown in to match the surrounding antique stores.  It’s the perfect place to tuck in and catch up, which is just what my sister Sammi and I did on a sunny day a few weeks back.  It was a celebration of her finally passing her investment banker test or financial test or whatever it was and which I still don’t understand a thing about, and so we took our respective babies out for sandwiches, soup & cake.

We both ordered the mushroom soup, and I don’t say this lightly, but honestly, it was one of the better soups I’ve ever had.  Creamy, yet brothy, with bits of mushroom floating blissfully throughout, it was surprisingly decadent.  My sandwich, a Basil Mozzarella & Tomato concoction, made for some messy eating, with balsamic oozing  deliciously thru my fingers.  By the time I was halfway thru eating it, I was a hot mess and Huck; despite a table with ample empty chairs which he had rejected in favor of my lap, was gladly licking off all the tangy sauce which fell onto his arms.

We ordered a celebratory piece of cake, which in true trendy fashion, was ombre purple with silver sugar balls which Huck couldn’t get enough off.  After properly destroying the cake, the evidence of which could be found all over the table and ourselves after the babies got ahold of it, we left Christa’s Sandwichboard with full bellies and happy memories; a true deli-licious afternoon indeed.

Christa’s Sandwichboard

1206 1st Street Snohomish, WA 98290

 360-568-9866

Open Tuesday-Sunday 10:30AM~5PM