The reason most people love D’Elia’s Grinders, the 70-year-old sandwich shop in Riverside, also happens to be the reason plenty of people hate it, too. 

The family-owned Italian deli has been baking its own bread since it opened and that bread isn’t your typical soft sandwich roll, made ubiquitous by every deli franchise from Subway to your local Safeway. D’Elia’s bread has a crisp, almost flaky exterior and its owners get complaints that the bread is stale on almost a daily basis. At the same time, they get just as many devotees begging them to open a location in a neighboring state. 

“Our Achilles heel, our blessing and our curse, is our bread,” co-owner Brian Perrone said. 

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Ralph and Mary D’Elia and John and Gladys Perrone opened D’Elia’s Grinders in 1955, expanding their family’s sandwich shop roots from Italy and Norwich, Connecticut, to Riverside. They had moved out to the Inland Empire seeking warmth and the California dream, baking bread from an old Italian recipe and selling it initially as a combination bakery/deli. The bakery economics didn’t make sense in the end, so they eliminated that part of the business after six months and went all in on sandwiches. But the founders remained dedicated to baking fresh bread every day of the week for their signature product.

The exterior of D’Elia’s Grinders is seen in Riverside, Calif., on Feb. 11, 2026.

Fresh sandwich bread at D’Elia’s Grinders in Riverside, Calif., on Feb. 11, 2026.

A staff member prepares a sandwich at D’Elia’s Grinders in Riverside, Calif., on Feb. 11, 2026.

Just as they kept the original recipe for the bread, they also left “grinder” in the shop’s name. It’s a moniker not many West Coasters are familiar with. It’s a term that began in the Northeast with some of its origins up for debate, but most agree it probably had at least something to do the “grind” it required of your teeth to get through these thick-breaded sandwiches. “People still ask me, what’s a grinder?” co-owner John Perrone Jr. said with a laugh during a recent SFGATE visit, admitting it’s probably not great for the shop’s searchability.

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John inherited the business with his cousin Brian from their twin fathers, who ran the shop for decades after they inherited it from their parents, the original owners. John and Brian both worked at the original shop as teens and were in and out of the business when they hit adulthood, only to eventually decide they wanted to continue the family’s legacy. 

The duo run two locations today, the original on University Avenue and a smaller outpost in the Orangecrest neighborhood on the south side of town. Individually, the cousins still each take one shift a week baking their family’s signature bread, starting the process at 4 a.m. to make the rolls for both locations. Of the bread, “It's super labor-intensive, it’s unique to us and so you want to protect it,” Brian said.

Johnny Perrone Jr. and Brian Perrone, co-owners of D’Elia’s Grinders, pose with bread at D’Elia’s Grinders in Riverside, Calif., on Feb. 11, 2026.

Decor on a wall at D’Elia’s Grinders in Riverside, Calif., on Feb. 11, 2026.

The recipe has mostly stayed the same throughout the years, and while it’s secret, John revealed the key is using a high-gluten flour, which helps get the crunchy top and the big rise when the dough bakes. “It’s love or hate. The people who hate the crispy bread, it’s visceral. You have to have really thick skin,” Brian said. 

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They've made attempts to cater to people’s tastes over the years, even baking wheat bread for a few years to appease frequent requests, but the demand was never quite enough. 

But there still are bread concessions made based on customer tastes. The day SFGATE visited, John had made a few softer rolls during his morning baking shift, just to give out to anyone who specifically requested one — and someone always does. 

And yet, for every customer who asks for a little bit more forgiving roll, devotees love the store’s signature bread so much, they’ve asked Brian and John if they could ship it to them out of state. They’ve tried it before, but they said they just didn’t feel good about sending something that would ultimately be a day-old product. “For us, it’s a pride thing,” Brian said. “I don’t want to send somebody something that’s not good.” 

The interior of D’Elia’s Grinders in Riverside, Calif., on Feb. 11, 2026.

Johnny Perrone Jr., co-owner of D’Elia’s Grinders, interacts with customers at D’Elia’s Grinders in Riverside, Calif., on Feb. 11, 2026.

A staff member prepares a sandwich at D’Elia’s Grinders in Riverside, Calif., on Feb. 11, 2026.

But that hasn’t stopped the requests. “Every day we’re going to have customers say, ‘Why is your bread stale?’ And every day we’re going to have customers say, ‘You need to build a store in this city,’” John said, explaining that “this city” might mean Tucson, Arizona, or Reno, Nevada, for example. 

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More and more regulars, or former regulars, have asked the cousins to franchise or open up a location in a neighboring state, places many Californians have fled to in recent years. “We do know based on our customers and reading the news, many Californians are moving to Arizona and Nevada and we lost customers to Arizona and Nevada because they moved away,” John said. “So they’re still our customers, but they don’t visit as often.”

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Operating a business in California is tough, they admit, so they said if they were to consider a third location, it would likely be in one of those states. As minimum wage has steadily risen in California, plus the rising cost of food, it’s harder to make a profit without major price increases. 

But since they admit that an expansion probably won’t happen without an outside investor, they’re doing their best to attract new customers in unique ways locally. They host an Off-Road and Jeep meet-up event every month and offer specials to local universities and BOGO 50% deals on rainy days. 

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They’ve also found great success with 4-foot-long “party grinders,” special-order sandwiches that are especially popular for events like the Super Bowl. Even with two locations, the sandwiches are in limited supply as D’Elia’s Grinders caps orders at 190 per day — that’s the maximum amount of bread at that size they can bake each morning — and they’ve sold out the past three years with some customers placing their preorders a month ahead.

A staff member prepares a sandwich at D’Elia’s Grinders in Riverside, Calif., on Feb. 11, 2026.

Sandwiches are lined up at D’Elia’s Grinders in Riverside, Calif., on Feb. 11, 2026.

On a recent rainy Wednesday in February, the shop was busy at lunchtime, with most tables full of groups of people enjoying their sandwiches. The restaurant is no-frills, with beige tiled floors and simple wood tables and a few cushioned booths. Old family photos hang on the walls and a slideshow plays on a TV above the sandwich counter showing more old photos, interspersed with pictures of freshly baked bread. Sandwiches come generously piled with ingredients and toppings and wrapped in paper and served on plastic trays. 

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The bread, in other words, isn’t the only thing that remains the same. Not much changes year to year here, and that’s the way most people like it, including regulars who have been coming in for decades. The family has made sure to celebrate the shop’s milestones over the years, throwing huge celebrations on its 60th, 65th and 70th anniversaries. Those days are anchored by 65-cent — no that’s not a typo — sandwich deals that have had people lining up as early as 4 a.m. By the time they opened at 10 a.m. each year, lines were around the block and they’d ultimately prepare thousands of sandwiches, perhaps giving even their harshest critics a grinder to help change their minds. 

The exterior of D’Elia’s Grinders is seen in Riverside, Calif., on Feb. 11, 2026.

Johnny Perrone Jr., co-owner of D’Elia’s Grinders, poses with customers outside of D’Elia’s Grinders in Riverside, Calif., on Feb. 11, 2026.

A staff member displays their shirt at D’Elia’s Grinders in Riverside, Calif., on Feb. 11, 2026.

Plenty of family members stop by regularly too, including the duo’s fathers, who are mostly retired these days. Brian’s teenage daughter has officially earned two paychecks, he said with a laugh, but he said she’s too young to think about inheriting the business. John doesn’t have kids, but the cousins joked that they’re also too young to be thinking about succession anyway. For now, they’ll just keep cranking out the product their regulars love, while explaining to the other half that it’s not stale, it’s just right. 

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“It’s the reason for our success,” John said. 

D’Elia’s Grinders, 2093 University Ave., Riverside. Open daily, 10 a.m.-8 p.m.

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