Ithaca's Shortstop Deli is good food 24/7

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Whether you call them subs or grinders or hoagies or whatever, Shortstop Deli specializes in those long sandwiches on fresh-baked French bread, or smaller sandwiches on kaiser rolls. They've got the usual ham, roast beef, and turkey, but they've also got seafood salad, eggplant, seitan, or prime rib.

Call me boring, but my usual cold sub at the Shortstop is a ham and swiss double ($4.95 plus 60 cents for cheese), with lettuce, tomato, and Hellman's mayo. When I'm in the mood to mix it up, I might play with the more interesting veggies that are on hand, such as black olives and hot peppers, or skip the cold cuts and go with chicken cordon bleu or a vegan burger.

For the last couple of years, the Shortstop hot sub menu has had a selection of the famous Hot Truck French bread pizza subs. They're not quite the same, but if the Hot Truck on Stewart Avenue, now under the same ownership as Shortstop, is closed when you just need one, they're the next best thing.

Just don't bother spouting Truck-speak at the Shortstop counter staff; there's a very limited selection of basic subs and add-on toppings available, and you need to circle your selections on one of Shortstop's sandwich forms. My Hot Truck sub of choice? An MBC Link, hot and heavy. The closest the Shortstop could come was an HSC plus meatballs, and they forgot the meatballs. (At least they forgot to charge me for them, too.)

Supplement your sub with a fresh hot bowl of soup or chili. I like to mix the vegetarian chili, with its big chunks of tomatoes, with the meat chili. I know, sacrilege. There's always chicken-noodle soup, plus a rotating selection of daily soups like cream of broccoli and Italian wedding soup, and if you're lucky and there's some left, you can get a nice hot cup of macaroni and cheese... real comfort food for a cold afternoon. Honestly, if there's mac & cheese, that's what I'll leave the deli with, nearly every time, ignoring the sandwiches entirely.

You can get a Snapple or Gatorade or a bottle of juice or soda, but the soda fountain is a great deal... ten cents a cup, any sized cup, if you're buying your soda with a sub. Shortstop also has a good selection of freshly brewed Paul de Lima gourmet coffee, including some exclusive blends like "Ithaca Style Coffee" and the East Coast and West Coast blends. There's also fair trade organic coffee to be had, and if your definition of "coffee" is a bit more liberal, you might like the machines that serve frothy flavored coffee drinks at the push of a button. Shortstop has stopped selling six-packs and twelve-packs of beer, though, so you'll have to stop elsewhere if you'd like a cold brew with your sub.

Expect to pay $4-8 per person for your meal. Shortstop is open 24 hours a day, every day, on West Seneca Street just west of the Commons. Visit shortstopdeli.com or call 273-1030.