Capriotti’s is a small but growing sandwich chain. They fancy themselves towards the upscale end of things, and they make an effort to live up to that. The beef and turkey are roasted in-house, for example, although likely in the same sort of prepared-product-at-very-specific-company-standards sort of way that Subway bakes their own bread. I’m not 100% certain that’s the case, but the overall quality of the sandwich hints that it is.

The SlawBeJo is roast beef, coleslaw, provolone cheese, Russian dressing and mayo. The mayo jumps out at me. I respect mayo as a technical ingredient, one that brings a structural element to things. It’s there to prevent bread from getting soggy, not for the flavor. With both Russian dressing and coleslaw involved, there’s simply no need for additional mayo. That’s a conceptual error, though the mayonnaise boosters out there are well within their rights to champion their bland glop all they like.

Mayonnaise aside, this has the potential to be a pretty good sandwich. Contrast in textures, potential for a strong but balanced set of flavors, it’s all there. The problem with Capriotti’s isn’t their vision, it’s that their vision is stretched across nearly 100 establishments. The coleslaw is bland, begging for a bit of pepper. The Russian dressing is hardly present, likely the result of some cost-minded portion control. Flavor by way of committee ruined what could have been a very good sandwich, and there’s no excuse for that.