Food Trailer Review: Knuckle Sandwich Is Love at First Bite
This buzzy spot is worth the price
Reviewed by Melanie Haupt, Fri., Jan. 31, 2025
Idioms are fun, aren’t they? As an English teacher, one of my favorite lessons is to have students draw literal representations of idioms, which always yields creative and sometimes hilarious results. I remember one student who drew the literal interpretation of a knuckle sandwich, two thick pieces of bread with a menacing fist between them, topped with lettuce and tomato. It’s absurd enough to forget that the idiom means to punch someone in the mouth.
Austin’s Knuckle Sandwich doesn’t involve any mouth-punching (as far as I know), at least not literally. The tiny food trailer located on the patio of Ants Beer Cave at the Yard (seriously, it’s like a matryoshka doll of businesses) is the brainchild of chef Ryan Fox, most recently of the Emmer & Rye group. Fox opened the trailer in early August of 2024 with a small menu of four sandwiches and a few sides and has had people who talk about food buzzing ever since.
When my spouse and I went to check it out for a chilly Sunday lunch, they were already bumping despite only having been open for about an hour. I chose the eponymous sandwich and a cup of matzo ball soup, while my spouse selected the Not Boring Turkey and a side of panisse (chickpea tots). Fox, who was working in the trailer with one other staffer, mentioned that we’d chosen a nice sampling of the menu and apologetically quoted a 20-minute wait for our meal. We chose some drinks from the bar and settled in at a picnic table, watching folks play pickleball amid the din of huge televisions blasting a football game, and were nice and hungry when our food arrived. The matzo ball soup was so fragrant, so luscious-looking, I completely ignored my sandwich and dove straight in. Redolent of turmeric from the Hawaij spice mix, the silky broth was studded with bits of carrot and other aromatics. Generous chunks of chicken thigh braced the star of the show, a deliciously dense matzo ball. I could have had an entire bowl of this and it would have been worth the drive.
The Knuckle Sandwich was delightful, an Italian sub bursting with flavor from Olympia Provisions mortadella and capicola salami and Mama Lil’s peppers. I really liked the use of a parmesan crisp for the cheese, which added a pop of both texture and salty umami. Fox sources his bread from both Abby Jane Bakeshop and Pullman Market in San Antonio; the herb- and seed-topped white bread provided sturdy support. My spouse’s turkey sandwich was veritably bursting with sprouts (he is not a sprouts enjoyer, typically), which lent each bite a pleasing pop of freshness balanced by the salty tang of feta and olive tapenade.
He liked the panisse more than I did (“It’s like fried hummus,” he said); I would have liked a thicker crust on the plump fritters to balance out the very squishy centers. The schmaltz aioli and garlic toum for dipping helped mitigate the challenging texture a bit, but I left most of the panisse to my fella while I polished off my soup.
I’ve seen some grumbling on the internet about the prices at Knuckle Sandwich, and they are kind of a gut punch considering you can get a sub, chips, and a cookie for about 10 bucks at Thundercloud. But Knuckle Sandwich isn’t really a place you’re going to pop in for a quick weekday lunch before going back to work at the digital widget factory. This is a thoughtfully designed menu by a James Beard-nominated chef who has sourced artisanal ingredients for elevated sandwiches that warrant a higher price tag. And, as they say in the Maldives, if you’re going to eat, don’t make it a small coconut.
Knuckle Sandwich
440 E. St. Elmo Rd. (at the Yard)
