There are magnificent feats that can be accomplished in the span of two years. A scholar can get an associate’s degree. An athlete can train for and complete a marathon. A media investigator can launch a digital news startup, burn through $50 million of capital, and shut the endeavor down completely. And, as we learned today, reality stars Ariana Madix and Katie Maloney can learn to make a sandwich.
I’m being glib, though only slightly, about the Vanderpump Rules cast members’ long-in-the-making achievement: Their already infamous sandwich shop, Something About Her, finally opened today.
How long has it taken to open the shop’s doors? Spiritually, you could quote the lady from Titanic and it would feel right: just about 84 years. Realistically, Bravo fans—at the least the ones who dare eat carbs—have been waiting over two years for Something About Her to be in business, a period featuring a parade of delays and false starts that turned the entrepreneurial adventure into a running joke.
But as of May 22, the shop is real, as evidenced by the endless line of Vanderpump enthusiasts eager to get their mouths on some ciabatta and brag about it on Instagram. In one video posted on X, the queue snaked around the block from the shop’s West Hollywood location on N. Robertson Blvd. in West Hollywood, just around the block from Lisa Vanderpump’s tourist destination SUR.
It’s the rare busy area of Los Angeles when it comes to foot traffic, especially among WeHo gays traversing between the gym and happy hour on Santa Monica Blvd. Will that spell success for Something About Her? “I truly think this town does not need another fancy sandwich place,” my friend who lives down the block from the shop told me, under condition of anonymity, because I will force him to take me there next time I visit. “Godspeed to them.”
Something About Her is, one could say, “romantic comedy-themed.” Videos and photos shot at the space make it look like it could be a café straight out of a Nancy Meyers movie. That tracks, as, according to Vulture, Meyer’s production designer, Jon Hutman, who had worked on It’s Complicated, designed the space. In a video for Bravo, Maloney said she wanted patrons to feel “main character energy in a rom-com.”
The sandwiches themselves are all named after women in film, and are in the $14-19 range—expensive, but a hardly surprising price point. This is our world now, where I am charged $17 for a sandwich and shrug, “Sure, I guess…”
The Diane, presumably named after Diane Keaton, is a tuna salad on pumpernickel bread. The Reese, one can safely bet is named after Reese Witherspoon, is chicken salad on grain bread. The naming convention is cute, though I don’t know how I would feel if someone thought of me and immediately thought, “Salami!” I guess we could ask Cameron Diaz, whose The Cameron stars the cured meat.
As Eater—and my anonymous friend—points out, West Hollywood is hardly a sandwich shop desert. They’re everywhere there, but Madix and Maloney keep clarifying that the difference with their sandwiches is that they’re feminine. While my first instinct was to laugh at the argument, I actually get it. I often gender my sandwiches, so I guess I do understand this. (My Italian hero is my Great Big Boy, while, when I do a turkey on rye, she’s my Sweet Lil’ Lady.)
But the story here is not really the sandwiches themselves. It’s that the store’s doors are actually open. The years of delays were reportedly over permits, which is understandable—although Lisa Vanderpump shaded that excuse: “I would have probably opened it a year ago.”
The setbacks became fodder for a bit of sad comedy on the Vanderpump series. Having become an A-list folk hero following the “Scandoval” affair, Madix booked countless ad campaigns, magazine covers, a berth on Dancing With the Stars, and two stints on Broadway in Chicago. Meanwhile on the show, Maloney was seen toiling away at their empty sandwich shop.
Listen, Katie: Good things come to those who wait. And while I will not wait for much in this world, I sure as hell will wait for a good sandwich. Thank you for your service.
