PALM HARBOR, Fla. (AP) — Near as Dean Young can recall, Dagwood Bumstead started creating colossal sandwiches in his modest cartoon kitchen about 1936.
Through the years, the overstuffed works of edible art built by the bumbling patriarch of the Blondie comic strip have become familiar to millions of readers around the world who take respite in the funny pages.
Now Mr. Young, who took over writing the Blondie strip when his father, strip creator Chic Young, died three decades ago, is realizing a dream by opening a chain of sandwich shops bearing Dagwood’s name and whimsical image.
The first Dagwood’s Sandwich Shoppe, its walls festooned with brightly colored images from the world-famous strip, opened earlier this month in a Palm Harbor strip mall, not far from the Clearwater Beach studio where Mr. Young, 66, works daily putting words in his characters’ mouths.
The specialty: A 11/2-pound, double-decker, 24-ingredient behemoth called — what else? — the Dagwood. Yours for $8.90.
“There’s this feeling I have that Dagwood is with us,” Mr. Young said on the first day. “He’s not just somebody who’s in my mind living there; he’s actually helping us do this thing.”
Mr. Young and his partner, restaurant franchising specialist Lama Berry, expect 50 or so Dagwood’s franchises to open across the country in the next year and, if things go well, 600 to 800 within the next five years. He and his famous partner were smiling as they watched the rush on opening day.
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