Philippe The Original

History

Philippe's was founded in 1908 by Philippe Mathieu, a French immigrant. The French dip was supposedly born here around 1918 when Mathieu dropped a sliced roll into the roasting pan's drippings — the customer, a policeman, took it dipped anyway and came back the next day with friends asking for more. The shop has moved once, to its Alameda Street home by Union Station, and now serves dipped sandwiches over those same sawdust floors to a line that rarely lets up.