Eating Challenge: Stanley's Deli Fat Stanley
Author: indianapoliseater | Filed under: Eating ChallengesAs we have referenced on this site before, local eatery Stanley’s New York Deli has what we thought was an eating challenge. While they do have a sandwich called the “Fat Stanley” that is large and challenging to eat, there is not an official contest, per se, to finish it. Regardless, being able to finish this sandwich is quite an accomplishment and the photo diary of my attempt is below (results at the end; yes, I’m making you wait).
Disclaimer: I will point out that since I expected to be rolled out of Stanley’s on a cart, I only ate a handful and a half of mini twist pretzels for lunch and worked out at the gym as hard as I possibly could for about ninety minutes prior to this in order to work up a HUGE hunger. While I am a big eater, this is not my normal eating intake.
I arrived at Stanley’s with my oldest brother and ordered my Fat Stanley ($12.99) and was given a smirk by the guy working the counter as he probably thought I was just some sort of chump trying to be funny. A couple minutes later, the same guy delivered my sandwich to the table, laughed and gave me a dismissive “good luck.” Little did he know that I planned on bringing Stanley’s cute little sandwich to its knees.
Fat Stanley
If you can’t tell by the picture, here’s the official description of the Fat Stanley from Stanley’s website:
“1 LB of Corned Beef, Pastrami, Roast Beef and Oven Roasted Turkey Breast with Imported Swiss Cheese, Homemade Cole Slaw, Yellow Mustard and Thousand Island Dressing piled high with three slices of Old World Rye.”
As you can also tell, the sandwich was served with homemade potato chips (delicious, by the way) and a pickle spear. The packet of Equal is there as a frame of reference so you can see how big the sandwich is. After a taking some photos and yucking it up with my brother, I was ready to dig in.
Time to eat...
As you can see, the sandwich was about as big as half of my face but I was not intimidated. The biggest issue with this sandwich is that it is so large that it is really difficult to manage and meat falls everywhere. Despite this, I kept plowing on and after about five minutes, I was really tearing into it.
Halfway done...
As I hit the halfway mark, I realized that this sandwich was going to be no problem to eat so I wasn’t concerned anymore about eating it quickly so that I could finish before I felt full. I wanted to enjoy the sandwich and I must say that the corned beef and pastrami portions of the sandwich were DELICIOUS. The roast beef and oven roasted turkey were good too, but the former two meats were the ones that stole the show. I took about eight more minutes to eat and was left with this:
All done!
After finishing this monstrosity, I can honestly say that I was only probably about 85-90% full. I don’t know if that says the sandwich is not really all that big or that is an endorsement of my gluttonous tendencies (I went out for a medium Reese’s Blizzard at Dairy Queen later), but I firmly believe that any above average eater could accomplish this one with little to no problems. My brother said he’s going to try it next time he goes to Stanley’s, so that’ll put my theory to the test. Also, WIBIA and I talked soon after I ate this thing and he’s going to get in there as soon as possible to make his run at the Fat Stanley. I wholeheartedly believe that he’ll dispatch this sandwich with relative ease.
-IndianapolisEater
Tags: Fat Stanley, Food, Stanley's Deli
That looks awesome…and something I could actually defeat. Medium Reese’s Blizzard to top it off later gets a thumbs up from me.
Haha, good job my friend
No need for the disclaimer….let the weak perish of smaller appetites…eat up my good man, eat up 
“I went out for a medium Reese’s Blizzard at Dairy Queen later” – There’s the ticket. Have you tried the Girl Scout Tagalong Peanut Butter Blizzard? I’m wondering how it is.
This sangwich looks delicious and I know I’d dominate it. I like the challenge posts. Do you know of any other challenges near you? It’d be fun to see more. We’ll see how your brother does.
Those chippies look awesome….how are they compared to your favorite store bought?
We like the eating challenge posts too and WIBIA and I are looking into doing several more. EatFeats.com has a list of all the challenges broken out by state, so we have something to work off of. The only thing that sucks is that the majority of challenges in Indiana are outside the Indianapolis area.
I thought about getting the Tagalong Blizzard (Tagalongs are my favorite Girl Scout cookie) but opted against it since it has a sizeable amout of calories more than the Reese’s Blizzard. I know I shouldn’t have cared at that point since I just devoured this sandwich, but I guess I did. I am proud to say though that I rode my bike to Dairy Queen (about 45 minutes round trip) and spent another twenty minutes on the Elliptical machine at the gym after my Blizzard, so I wasn’t a total glutton on the day. Sadly, I am the kind of dork that concerns himself with counting calories.
The chips were just as good as a store bought kettle crunch chip (also my favorite), so they were a nice addition. The only complaint I had about them was that they were too greasy. You can chalk this up to them being fresh, but still, I’m much rather eat a dry and very crunchy chip as opposed to one that is slightly soggy and loses some of its crunch because of that.
Congrats on showing the deli worker who’s boss! You should have given him the empty sandwich tray after you finished, and smirked right back at him.
Wow. You are the man. I doubt very seriously if I could finish that. Although it does look good. It sounds like you enjoyed it, so Would you buy it again?
I would eat it again, but I probably wouldn’t buy it. That has nothing to do with the taste but instead the fact that I don’t generally like to get in the habit of buying sandwiches for $12.99.
That was awesome! Stomach of steal!
That sandwich resembles a sandwich called the Cloak and Dagger. I don’t kniw if it is just a MD thing but it is: Rye bread, corned beef, cole slaw and russian dressing! MMM now I want one.
Is that an entrail hanging down from the bun? Jesus…
I would definitely eat that sandwich!
Is that pastrami, or maybe roast beef, trying to grow arms, wanting to be somebody? Looking for something to grab onto, trying to get out that bread that is about to be devoured..
That is a piece of the delicious pastrami that was trying to sneak out. Eventually, I just put the sandwich down and started eating it individually with my fingers straight out of the serving tray instead of trying to pick it up.
You people need to come to dc, you guys eat like I do!