The Half Shell closed Thursday after decades serving the neighborhood a sprawling menu led by Greek-style pizzas, calzones, pastas and salads. It makes way for The Sub Shop, a buzzy transplant from Boston’s Fort Point that specializes in artist-level sandwiches on bread baked daily by owner Josh Winer.

The space at 1760A Massachusetts Ave., Porter Square, should be dark only a short time; Winer, an East Somerville resident, said he expects to open as soon as mid-October.

Advertisement

The Lagoudakis family that has been running the diner-style eatery since 1998 went out exactly as they wanted: with longtime customers flowing in to say goodbye. “It was nonstop,” Hope Lagoudakis said. “People were crying.”

Though Lagoudakis asked to keep the news of the closing a secret until Friday’s signing of a lease to Winer, word leaked against her wishes. She was reluctant even to have the family name published. 

On Thursday, state representative Marjorie Decker emailed a newsletter to constituents devoted to “the bittersweet news that today is the last day to stop by.” 

“For almost 30 years, the Lagoudakis family has nourished our community with love, generosity and really good food, bringing the flavors and hospitality of Greece to Cambridge and making the Half Shell a place where generations of neighbors could gather around a table,” Decker said. She brought by a resolution signed by State House speaker Ron Mariano, which the family was showing off as customers came to drop off flowers and cards, wish the family well and walk away with final servings of favorite meals – no charge.

The family owns the restaurant property, and Hope Lagoudakis was conflicted to the end about retiring. But it was time for husband Paul, who’s been working a grill almost daily since 1979, to retire. Son John was the other daily presence behind the counter. “I think it’s still not time to let go. I will never let go, because of the people here, the customers, the community here,” she said in an interview Sept. 10. “I’m going to miss all these people. I’m sad. But at at the same time, I have to retire and spend time with my grandkids.”

“The support over the years that we’ve been here,” Hope said. “We really, really want to say thank you to everyone. Believe me, it’s not easy for me to let go.” Cambridge and Harvard police and Cambridge firefighters and EMTs had been especially strong supporters of the restaurant. “They were here from the very start,” she said.

The Half Shell also had a robust menu of grinders, and customers who return to sample the Sub Shop menu will likely not feel out of place. “I’m keeping it kind of a classic American sub shop, so I’m not doing major renovations. I like the look of that space, and that’s part of the reason I took it,” said Winer in a Tuesday phone call.

“Game-changer” sandwiches

The Seaport menu of 9-inch subs arrives intact, including his Spicy Calabrian Chicken with ranch pickle relish; Shaved Ribeye steak and cheese; and a turkey rosemary sandwich. But Winer said he has used his downtime to concoct a couple of new items, including a tribute to The Half Shell: a vegetarian sandwich inspired by the jalapeño poppers that were among the diner’s side orders. The Sub Shop version has roasted peppers, a cream cheese sauce and the house mix of crispies on Winer’s crusty-sesame seeded bread rolls, made from scratch daily after a 24-hour fermentation process.

Years were spent perfecting the roll, refining the dough, the bake and the texture, Winer said. The idea was to draw on the family-owned sub shop traditions he grew up around in Rochester, New York, where the owners were known for baking their own rolls in-house daily. It’s the same with the finely shredded lettuce – his “shredduce” – that he piles on.

“One of the sub shops I really loved growing up was part of that inspo,” Winer said. It also plays a role in how he builds a sandwich, engineered to get the bite he likes. With the help of his wife (his “harshest critic,” he said) he has worked to perfect a stack of thinly sliced vegetables, sauces top and bottom and the lettuce at the base “so you get that real juicy, saucy crunch.”

He’s spent 15 years in the industry, starting at a Charlie’s Cheesesteaks in high school and from 2020 to 2023 operating Venice Pizza in Dorchester, recognized twice by Boston Eater for Best Pizza in Boston. He’s also taken Best Sandwich in Boston, and in December 2024 brought that talent to Pastoral, owned by his older brother. The Sub Shop drew sell-out crowds and accolades.

Keonté Henson, the food influencer known as the Wannabe Stay-at-Home Dad, was among the fans after a visit in September. “This spot is worth the trip damn near just for the bread alone,” Henson said, calling out the “juicy as hell” chicken and homemade hots as “a game-changer.” The Calabrian, with its pickle-ranch relish, is “crazy,” Henson said. “I’m outta words.”

Long search for the right place

Winer was looking for the right location for a permanent Sub Shop – a second-generation restaurant with good bones in the right neighborhood – even while at Pastoral. It was more than a year of working with brokers and cruising neighborhoods and online listings, he said, before the potential to take over from the Half Shell came up. It was “a real ambiguous listing,” but inquiring paid off. 

The 900-square-foot, 20-seat Half Shell space “has a lot of the stuff I need to open quickly, and that was important to me,” Winer said. “The cost of opening restaurants now can be extremely high, so finding something with the hood system and the space I would need to bake my own bread was a little bit of a challenge.” Other places had the gear he needed but not enough room to bake. “This turned out perfect – and I think they respected that it’s going to be a small business. They just kind of meshed with my personality and they liked my concept, so we worked out a deal.”

Though he lives near Michette and loves its jambon-beurre sandwich, he was already a regular along Massachusetts Avenue. “I love Porter Square,” Winer said, “a neighborhood that’s already fed me for years, from breakfast at Bagelsaurus and dinner at Izakaya Ittoku.”

“I’m excited to serve this community,” Winer said.

The Sub Shop has licensing to be open 6 a.m. to midnight all days, though Winer has more work to do in addition to light renovations: He’s hiring counter servers and sandwich makers.