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Last fall, rumors of Pete Davidson’s newfound romance began to circulate. Blurry photos sparked saucy theories. Unnamed sources and anonymous friends provided critical intel for gossip columnists. But it wasn’t until a night in mid-November last year when Pete Davidson emerged from Los Angeles celebrity haunt Giorgio Baldi holding hands with Kim Kardashian that the news became public. Yes, the rumors were true: Pete Davidson loves the merch from LA sandwich shop Uncle Paulie’s.
“It was like the biggest photo in the world that day,” Uncle Paulie’s co-founder Paul James told me. He’s not quite exaggerating.Onlookers immediately identified a hickey on Davidson’s neck, and in the following days gossip outlets focused in on every detail from the photo. Davidson’s mud-colored hat with cursive script spelling out “Uncle Paulie’s,” meanwhile, pulled James into the vortex. “We were getting gossip outlets and people DMing us like, ‘Tell us more!’” he said. James was as much in the dark about the photo as everyone else but the image sent something bigger into motion. With the help of Pete Davidson, Uncle Paulie’s went from friendly sub shop slinging T-shirts to bona fide always-sold-out streetwear brand.
James opened Uncle Paulie’s on LA’s Beverly Boulevard in 2017, hoping to recreate the sandwich shops he frequented growing up in Queens, New York. In LA, he said, your coffee order doesn’t even come with a side of eye contact. He missed the experience of walking “into a deli and the guy behind the counter knows your name and they know your order and ask how your wife and kid's doing,” James said.
Moving cold cuts and sandwiches has always been Uncle Paulie’s primary goal, but he’d always planned to sell merch, too. James wanted a design that reminded him of the shirts, complete with contact info, that local plumbers and tow truck operators would wear in his neighborhood while he was growing up. He entrusted his cofounder, luxe streetwear designer and sneaker Jon Buscemi, with quality control. The pair worked to find a supplier who would make tees locally in Los Angeles. “We put a little extra love into it than just printing on some random blanks,” James said.
Since the start, James and Buscemi have treated merch as a serious enterprise. Over the years, the sandwich shop rang up collaborations with Lacoste and Carhartt WIP. The result is a merch shop that moves hats and graphic tees with streetwear-drop efficiency. “As soon as we have the hats, they're gone. Right now I have none,” James said. “I'm waiting for a shipment to come. They fly off the shelves.” And even before Davidson, the shop carved out an interesting role as a little slice of Italian-Americana for those abroad. The shop frequently ships its hats to customers in Japan. The merch is successful enough that it’s become a “whole other business,” James says
The Uncle Paulie’s merch is part of a long-simmering trend of Sichuan-peppercorn-hot food gear. In 2019, Bon Appetit wrote, “The Hottest New Streetwear Brand Is Actually a Restaurant.” The way fans used to wear band tees to signify their taste has now expanded to cover every other potential hobby and interest. Want to tell everyone you’re reading the latest Sally Rooney book? There’s a tote and a bucket hat for that. And if there's a favorite sandwich shop that captures your vibe, there’s merch for that, too. “People want to rep their favorite sandwich spot now,” James said.
Celebrities especially seemed keen to put on for their favorite sandwich shop. It doesn’t hurt that proprietors James and Buscemi both have a sneakered foot in fashion circle. “Me and my partner come from that world of streetwear and we have a lot of friends [from there],” James said. He mentions recently running into Aimé Leon Dore founder Teddy Santis—the two knew each other while growing up in Queens. Travis Scott wore the brand's hat several years ago. When you create a sub shop that’s meant to double as a spot to meet up, it helps to have cool friends hanging around.
And Uncle Paulie’s and Pete Davidson were a natural match. Both were Los Angeles transplants from one of New York City’s under-loved boroughs potentially searching for a little bit of home. “I think that's why [Davidson] fucks with us—because we're not from Manhattan, we're not from Brooklyn, we're the outer boroughs,” James said. And even if you’ve never been to the sandwich shop, its name tells a customer everything they might need to know. James joked you don’t meet a lot of Paulies on the west coast.
Davidson, apparently, owned Uncle Paulie’s merch even before he ate one of its sandwiches: apparently, James said, he liked a friend’s Uncle Paulie’s hat so much that he swiped it. Davidson doesn’t need to steal merch from his buddies anymore, though. James recently met the comedian and hooked him up with every piece of merch he could. The gift is paying dividends: Davidson wore the merch on a double date with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez. It was another good day for Uncle Paulie’s. Every time Davidson shows up in the merch, it drives customers to the web shop, James confirms. He bets it also helps sell plenty of Artichoke Caprese and Chicken Caesar sandwiches, too. “I couldn't ask for somebody nicer to be rocking my shit,” James said. “He’s team Uncle Paulie.”