There are two Victory Sandwich Bars in Atlanta, and last weekend, Adam and I met up with the fine folks behind Marie, Let’s Eat! and Bella Vivere at the Decatur location.

Those of you familiar with Decatur may recognize the location as the old Johnny Brusco’s New York Style Pizza. I don’t know what happened to Johnny’s, but I doubt that the crazy mural that used to adorn the left side of the building is missed by many of Decatur’s residents. Though I do kind of hope I have an old picture of it lurking somewhere in my files, for posterity.

Victory is another fine “order first” establishment, but since we were a little early to our foodie rendezvous, we ponied up to the bar to study the menu and suck on a rum and coke slushie.

I took a ton of photos here, because the interior design was so lovely, and the lighting was cooperating with my sensibilities. I hope you enjoy the photo overload, though I daresay if you’re at all familiar with my posts, you’ve come to expect it.

When our friends arrived, and we all managed to quit catching up just long enough to decide what to order, we got things started.

Adam ordered a Victory Libre – a fun alcoholic drink served right in the MexiCoke bottle. We splitsied a Beast on Yeast with a rotini side salad, and a Lamborghini with a ramen side. We also grabbed a pimiento cheese jar for the table, and then proceeded to consume 95% of it ourselves. Oops!

We were grateful to see the sandwiches come out with chips added. $4 for these little sandwiches is a fantastic price, but it is nice to get a little sumthin’-sumthin’ to make you feel like you’re getting added value! Plus chips are just such a natural choice with sandwiches.

The Beast on Yeast is a chunk of pot roast on a roll with some horseradish sauce. I was slightly disappointed that Adam ordered this, because I wanted to try something more complicated and edgy, but he was right to do so. This was a simple pleasures sort of sandwich, and I enjoyed it. The rotini salad was good, but not ground-breaking – which is just fine by me.

The Lamborghini is a salami, capicola, red pepper and provolone sandwich with salsa verde. This sandwich called my name so hard that I could not resist, despite wanting to try something more exotic like Victory At Sea, or the Beeter. It was a bit flatter than I expected, but no less tasty for it.

The ramen was as advertised – “served cold, like revenge!” I know cold ramen is a thing, that is to say not something Victory made up arbitrarily, but it somehow seemed more like a mostly southern dish that uses an exotic ingredient than ramen served in a southern way. Maybe it’s the prevalence of cold pasta salads in my childhood. Maybe it was the little ham squares. Regardless, it was good, but I’d probably skip it next time.

Now, pimiento cheese is something I didn’t have a lot in my youth, for whatever reason. But when Adam and I saw the pimiento jar with bacon jam in the snacks section of the menu, we had to go for it. Served with toasted baguette slices, this was pretty awesome. I’m not a connoisseur of pimiento cheese, but I enjoyed myself heartily and ate way too much of it. Definitely worth the $6!

Having had great conversation (so much so that we received a few sidelong looks from other diners, oh well), and having stuffed ourselves with no room for desserts (the PBJ custard in the case looked like something I’d love), we all called it a successful venture to Victory and rolled on home, passing by the lovely patio on the way out.

I think Victory has a great concept, fantastic prices, creative and tasty food items, and a lovely space in which to dine. 4 solid stars.

See what Sandy has to say about Victory at Bella Vivere.

Victory Sandwich Bar
340 Church Street
Decatur, GA 30030