Located at the corner of Sixth and Ellis Streets, facing one of downtown’s railroad tracks, Hildebrandt’s has been open since 1879. It’s been a grocery, a Christmas tree shop, and in the early part of the 20th century, started being known for its sandwiches, thanks to its enterprising third-generation owner, Louis (pronounced LU-EE) Hildebrandt.
Louis’ name is still on several sandwiches today, and the German deli is still known them. It’s also become a destination for those who love getting fresh food along with a slice of Augusta history.
In recent years, Hildebrandt’s has reinvented itself, paring down its menu, offering new items (on the day I went, it had just launched a macaroni salad), and selling local soaps, honeys, condiments and more, along with Hildebrandt’s-branded clothing items in its updated store.
It’s also spiffed up its dining space, with its circular wooden tables decked in colorful placemats and sunlight flooding in through its tall windows. But regulars can still get a seat in the back, at the tall marble-topped table where they can chat with Luann Hildebrandt, the fourth-generation owner, who still makes the sandwiches.
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On the day I went, it was my husband Sean’s birthday. With a 5-year-old and busy work schedules, lunch in recent years has meant a meal eaten in front of a computer screen, so visiting Hildebrandt’s again was a special treat.
Ordering is done at a counter at the rear of the dining room, where an employee writes down your sandwich choice on Hildebrandt’s custom ordering form, which you used to fill out yourself. There are now 14 sandwich options—including Lu’s Choice, featuring a variety of meats; a German or Italian Louis, featuring meats from those countries; the Sweet Heat Louis, including buffalo chicken, pepper jack and DiChicko’s Sweet Heat sauce; the Club Louis; four types of reubens; a BLT; a fried bologna sandwich; a pork chop sandwich; and three types of hot dogs. But Hildebrandt’s is also known for being able to customize, which makes the sandwich choices almost unlimited.
Each can be served with bagged chips, or Hildebrandt’s German potato salad, cucumber dill salad, coleslaw, broccoli craisin salad, and now macaroni salad. There are a huge array of bottle drinks, along with tea, lemonade or water, and you can also bring home some Hildebrandt’s in the form of meats and cheeses, salads and sides—all sold by the pound—and even loaves of bread.
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I usually order the boneless pork chop sandwich—on white toast, with mayo and a slice of tomato—but I was feeling fancy that day, so decided to get the Club Louis with that mac salad on the side. My husband’s favorite is the German Louis—he loves Braunschweiger, which for those who don’t know is also referred to as liver cheese. The deli was out of the meat that day, but (through the employee) Luann said she could work around it.
We settled on a table right by the big front window so we could watch the traffic go by. And it didn’t take long for our sandwiches, tucked on wax paper in a plastic basket, to arrive.
My club was stacked high, three slices of white toast filled with turkey, ham, plenty of bacon, lettuce, tomato and mayo. It was probably one of the tallest sandwiches I’ve ever tried to eat, and it tended to slip and slide a bit between bites, but I still mastered it. The lettuce was crisp and cool, the mayo and tomato were sweet, and then there were the smoky and salty notes from the bacon and ham, and the quiet flavor of the turkey to balance it all out.
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I’ve loved macaroni salad since I first had what I call the real version in Hawaii on the islands’ traditional “plate lunch” (kalua pork, rice and mac salad), and this was a good one. There was plenty of the rich, sweet dressing on the noodles, along with flavors of cucumber, red bell pepper, onion and carrots. I feel slightly a traitor saying this, but I liked it even better than the German potato salad.
I had so much food that Sean finished his and mine besides. He admitted that he still missed his Braunschweiger, which just meant that we’d have to plan another Hildebrandt’s return soon.
Danielle Wong Moores is a local freelance writer who’ll never turn down a shrimp cocktail, sushi or cheese dip. Her greatest food influences are her mom and writers MFK Fisher and Amanda Hesser. Her Dine and Dish column runs the second and fourth Friday of each month.
