Pasadena Sandwich Company Celebrates 20 Years Mar. 6

By Terry Miller

If you’re lucky enough to have stepped into Pasadena Sandwich Company recently, you will have noticed the remarkable family team that is PSC. In fact, once you’ve met the members of this family you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who doesn’t feel like they are part of this extraordinary extended family too.
Grandma Doris Fink, 99 this August, supported her husband Burt who had a dream: 20 years and three generations later, the original recipes are still being used and business is still going strong. March 2015 celebrates 20 years serving others where the Fink family served healthy and nutritious meals to customers and where they have watched those customers marry and have children – treating customers as family like their father, Stephen Fink, had always done himself. Stephen, who passed away of Amyloidosis in 2010 (a very rare blood condition), started Pasadena Sandwich Company based on raising a family. His three daughters and son have carried on the art of crafting sandwiches after being mentored by their father since the creation of PSC in 1995.
Meghan Fink, along with her siblings Kaytee, Nicole and Jon, own Pasadena Sandwich Company. They are the third generation to own and operate these NY-styled deli/restaurants. Their grandparents started this style of deli/restaurant in the 1950s and would cook the meats and make the salads at home and then drive them to a store front and make sandwiches for their community in Pomona.
The Finks are sticklers for tradition and quality so things pretty much run like their grandparents ran the business in the 1950s: Like cooking their meats in-house and preparing homemade salads fresh daily.
Steve’s children have also created the “Big Steve” sandwich and the Stephen E Fink Memorial Fund which supports community and the Amyloidosis Foundation through donations for research towards a cure of this rare disease.
Grandma Fink lives in West Covina but still is kept appraised of the family business, which she started in the 1950s. Family members behind the counter include Meghan Fink, Kaytee Fink, Nicole Rasmussen, and Jonathan Fink. Long-time employees who have stayed alongside the Fink family include Doris Cheng and Reina Silva.
The Fink family also gives back to the community that has supported them for so many years. On Thanksgiving, Pasadena Firefighters and the Fink family prepare food and fill blessing (gift) bags and serve over 300 meals to families in Pasadena who are transitioning from homelessness to self-sufficiency. Most are pre-identified by the Pasadena Unified School District.
Stop by March 6 to see these wonderful young people in action … following their hearts, grandparents’ and father’s dream to make the best sandwiches in the Valley, probably in Los Angeles … maybe even the world!
The Pasadena Sandwich Company is located at 259 Sierra Madre Villa, just north of Foothill Blvd. and the 210 freeway.

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