A hot roast beef hero lands on the counter with fried onions spilling from the sides, pepper jack melting into every crevice, and enough heft to make a bag of chips feel wildly unnecessary. This is lunch at Elmer’s Country Store, where the sandwich menu reads like somebody gave a neighborhood deli permission to have a little fun.
Tucked along East Saddle River Road in Upper Saddle River, Elmer’s is part deli, part grill, part convenience store, and part unofficial town meeting place.
You can order a bacon, egg, and cheese before sunrise, pick up groceries on the way home, or spend several minutes debating whether roast beef belongs with horseradish, avocado, bacon, or all three.
The answer is usually all three. Nothing about the place feels engineered for social media, and that is a big part of its appeal. Elmer’s has built its following the old-fashioned way, one freshly assembled sandwich and familiar face at a time.
Elmer’s Country Store Has Served Upper Saddle River Since 1982
More than four decades is a long time to keep a New Jersey lunch crowd interested, especially in a state where residents have strong opinions about everything from bagels to the correct amount of meat on a hero. Elmer’s Country Store has been doing exactly that since 1982, quietly settling into the daily routine of Upper Saddle River.
The store sits at 359 East Saddle River Road, near the intersection with Lake Street and directly across from the Hopper-Goetschius House Museum, a local landmark that helps explain why this corner feels more like an old village crossroads than a typical suburban commercial strip. Elmer’s fits naturally into that setting.
It is not just a deli with a country-store name pasted above the door. The business combines a grill, sandwich counter, grocery selection, coffee and tea, catering, convenience-store essentials, and an attached gas station in one practical stop.
That combination matters in Upper Saddle River, a mostly residential Bergen County community without a traditional downtown lined with cafés and takeout counters. Elmer’s fills the gap.
Early in the morning, commuters stop for coffee and breakfast sandwiches. Around noon, the pace shifts as contractors, local workers, students, and residents arrive looking for something more substantial.
Later in the day, somebody may come in only for a drink or a forgotten grocery item and leave carrying dinner. The business describes itself as family-owned and operated, and its long hours reflect the role it plays.
The posted schedule currently begins at 5:30 a.m. on weekdays, 6 a.m. on Saturdays, and 7 a.m. on Sundays, with evening closing times extending as late as 9 p.m. That is a wide window, but Elmer’s has never been built around a single meal.
It works because the store remains useful from the first egg sandwich of the morning to the last snack run of the evening.
Made-to-Order Sandwiches Keep the Lunch Crowd Coming Back
Watch the counter during a busy stretch and the appeal becomes obvious. Orders come in with the kind of modifications that would overwhelm a less patient kitchen: extra onions, no tomato, toasted hero, mustard instead of mayonnaise, avocado added, cheese melted, dressing on the side.
At Elmer’s, that customization is not treated like an inconvenience. It is the entire point.
Sandwiches are prepared after the order is placed, allowing the bread, meat, cheese, vegetables, and condiments to come together according to the person who will actually be eating them. That sounds basic, but plenty of lunch counters rely on preassembled grab-and-go options that trade personality for speed.
Elmer’s manages to keep things moving without turning every sandwich into the same sandwich. A traditional roast beef, corned beef, pastrami, ham, salami, turkey, chicken cutlet, tuna melt, chicken salad, or egg salad order can remain completely straightforward.
Lettuce and tomato are standard on many of the traditional choices, while the customer controls the bread and extras.
The more elaborate specialty menu takes the opposite approach, pairing familiar deli ingredients in combinations with names such as the Upper Saddle River, Bogert Special, Iron Man, Jersey Shore, and Avocado Supreme.
The current online ordering menu places many traditional sandwiches around the $9 to $11 range, while specialty creations generally land between roughly $12 and $14 before optional additions.
Those prices can change, but the menu structure explains why Elmer’s works for both cautious first-timers and regulars who already know their exact order.
One customer can keep it classic with turkey on rye. The next can request a loaded chicken cutlet creation with avocado and a side of curly fries.
Both orders come from the same counter, and neither feels like an afterthought. It is deli food without unnecessary ceremony, built quickly but not carelessly and served in combinations people can genuinely crave again the following week.
Premium Deli Meats and Plenty of Bread Choices Make Every Order Personal
The bread decision comes first, and it can change the entire personality of lunch. A soft round roll keeps a turkey sandwich compact and easy to handle.
Rye gives pastrami or corned beef the proper old-school deli backbone. Whole wheat makes a chicken salad order feel slightly more responsible, even when bacon somehow finds its way onto the ticket.
A hero creates room for hot roast beef, chicken cutlets, melted cheese, and fried onions without surrendering halfway through the meal. Elmer’s traditional sandwich menu lists round and multigrain rolls, rye, white, whole wheat, and bagels, with heroes available for an additional charge.
Breakfast specials can also be served on a customer’s choice of bread or bagel. The store says it uses Boar’s Head premium meats, giving the deli counter a dependable base of roast beef, turkey, ham, salami, corned beef, pastrami, bologna, and other familiar staples.
From there, the customization becomes nearly endless. Cheese can bring sharpness, creaminess, or heat through American, Swiss, provolone, pepper jack, mozzarella, or Vermont cheddar.
Crisp lettuce and tomato keep a cold sandwich balanced, while roasted peppers, grilled vegetables, sauerkraut, coleslaw, avocado, fried onions, jalapeños, and pickles can push it in a completely different direction.
Even the sauces cover plenty of territory, from mayonnaise and mustard to horseradish, Thousand Island dressing, balsamic, pesto, ranch, and chipotle.
The advantage of that variety is not simply having more ingredients. It allows two people to order the same meat and end up with lunches that barely resemble each other.
Roast beef might arrive cold on rye with lettuce, tomato, and horseradish for one customer. For another, it becomes a hot hero layered with pepper jack and fried onions.
Elmer’s does not demand that customers appreciate one signature preparation above all others. The deli counter provides the building blocks, then lets personal habit, appetite, and whatever sounds good that afternoon finish the job.
The Lake Special and BMW Give Regulars Plenty to Crave
Some sandwich names make you stop reading and start ordering, and the Lake Special is one of them. It places hot roast beef, pepper jack cheese, and fried onions on a hero, creating a straightforward combination with no decorative ingredients getting in the way.
The beef brings the substance, the onions add sweetness and a little char, and the pepper jack melts through the whole thing with enough heat to keep every bite interesting. The current online menu lists it at $12.95, which puts it squarely in full-lunch territory.
Then there is the BMW, a sandwich that sounds like it should come with leather seats but is considerably harder to eat while driving. Roast beef returns as the foundation, joined by bacon, melted Vermont cheddar, lettuce, tomato, horseradish, and mayonnaise.
It is rich, smoky, sharp, creamy, and slightly spicy all at once. The vegetables are not there merely for appearances; they give the heavier ingredients enough freshness to keep the sandwich from becoming a complete food coma.
Roast beef fans could spend several visits exploring the menu without repeating an order. The Upper Saddle River combines it with provolone, lettuce, tomato, and horseradish, while the BMW adds bacon and cheddar for a more indulgent version.
Beyond the beef, the Bogert Special layers sliced buffalo chicken, bacon, American cheese, lettuce, and tomato. The Iron Man mixes pastrami, Oven Gold turkey, Swiss cheese, coleslaw, and Thousand Island dressing.
The Jersey Shore turns cheesesteak into a loaded creation with melted provolone, peppers, and onions. There is also an Elmer’s Country sandwich built around fresh mozzarella, grilled vegetables, roasted red peppers, and greens, proving that a satisfying order does not have to involve a small mountain of cold cuts.
These combinations feel playful without becoming gimmicky. Each one still follows the logic of a good neighborhood deli sandwich: choose ingredients that belong together, pile them onto sturdy bread, and make sure the customer needs both hands.
Breakfast Sandwiches, Paninis, and Hot Heroes Go Far Beyond the Deli Counter
At 6 in the morning, nobody needs a complicated explanation. They need eggs, cheese, coffee, and possibly bacon as quickly as humanly possible.
Elmer’s understands the assignment. The breakfast menu starts with single-egg, double-egg, and egg-white sandwiches, then moves into combinations that treat breakfast with the same creativity as the lunch board.
The Hobo brings together two eggs, cheese, potatoes, and a choice of ham, bacon, or sausage. The Ferrari Special pairs two eggs with steak, American cheese, and grilled onions, while the Porsche combines eggs, roast beef, bacon, and Vermont cheddar.
There is also a breakfast burrito with pepper jack, jalapeños, salsa, and green peppers, plus omelets, pancakes, French toast, muffins, and platters for mornings when eating over the steering wheel is not the plan. Lunch expands the choices even further.
Paninis include maple honey turkey with bacon, mozzarella, avocado, and balsamic dressing; prosciutto and mozzarella with spinach, roasted peppers, and pesto; an Italian combination of ham, salami, pepperoni, provolone, and mixed greens; and the Reynolds Rocket with grilled chicken, bacon, avocado, cheddar, lettuce, and chipotle.
Wraps come in plain, whole-wheat, spinach, or sun-dried tomato varieties, with fillings ranging from buffalo chicken to grilled vegetables and Greek salad ingredients.
Hot heroes cover the red-sauce essentials: chicken Parmesan, meatball, meatball Parmesan, and Philly cheesesteak with mushrooms, onions, and cheese.
There are burgers, salads, pizza, quesadillas, wings, mozzarella sticks, fries, onion rings, and other options for the person in the group who somehow walked into a beloved deli and decided against a sandwich.
That broad menu is especially useful for families and work crews, where getting everyone to agree on one style of food can feel harder than choosing a movie. Elmer’s solves the problem by putting breakfast, deli classics, grill food, pizza, and hot Italian favorites under the same roof.
Family Ownership and Small-Town Convenience Make Elmer’s a Community Staple
The busiest places in town are not always the fanciest. Sometimes they are the places that remember to stock cold drinks, make breakfast early, keep the grill running, and hand over lunch without turning a routine stop into a production.
Elmer’s has lasted because it remains useful in dozens of small ways. A customer can fill the gas tank, grab coffee, order a bacon, egg, and cheese, pick up a few grocery items, and be back on East Saddle River Road before the rest of the morning has fully started.
At lunch, the same building shifts into deli mode as sandwich orders stack up behind the counter. The store also offers catering and school-lunch services, extending its role beyond walk-in meals and into local events and everyday family schedules.
Family ownership gives the operation a personal identity, but the deeper connection comes from repetition. A business becomes a community staple when residents stop thinking of it as a destination and start treating it as part of the map.
Elmer’s is where somebody grabs lunch after an appointment, where teenagers stop for snacks, where workers know they can get a hot hero without driving toward a busier commercial district, and where longtime customers return to orders they have probably been making for years.
Its country-store format may feel pleasantly old-fashioned, but the reason it survives is entirely practical.
The store adapts to whatever the day requires. It can be a breakfast counter at dawn, a sandwich shop at noon, a neighborhood market in the afternoon, and a quick fuel-and-snack stop in the evening.
Through all those roles, the deli remains the center of gravity. The familiar names on the menu, the freedom to customize, and the steady rhythm behind the counter turn an ordinary meal into something dependable.
In a town without a conventional Main Street, Elmer’s has become one of the places where local life naturally crosses paths.