Of all the pastrami joints in town, how did Maize & Blue, a low-profile deli on the outer fringes of the South University business strip, end up playing Park Place to Shinola’s Boardwalk? Omar Sukkar won’t say who else was short-listed by landlord Reza Rahmani to fill his ground-floor space behind Shinola at Liberty and Main, but he does say that the Sukkar family didn’t have any ties beforehand to Rahmani: “I had no idea who he was. He came into the place on South U and fell in love,” says Omar, whose father and uncle (Kelly and Ed Sukkar) opened the deli in 1988.

While it wasn’t a foregone conclusion that this specific sandwich shop would be offered the chance to rent the small space that also includes a chunk of basement, Omar says Rahmani had narrowed his sights to a business very much like Maize & Blue: “He wanted some kind of restaurant, as long as it didn’t produce a lot of smells for other tenants.” Especially Shinola, which so adamantly didn’t want its leather goods to smell like fryer grease that it had something to that effect written into its contract, says Omar. Neither did Rahmani want to add another white-tablecloth full-service restaurant to downtown’s already crowded field.

Meanwhile, Omar and his brothers Hamzah and Mike had been looking to grow the business beyond their father and uncle’s modest spot. They looked at other cities, including Chicago and Fort Lauderdale, before settling on downtown Ann Arbor. “It’s a big risk,” Omar says. He won’t reveal the rent, though he will say that it’s almost as much as he’d have paid in a tony block of downtown Fort Lauderdale. “But you have to consider the area. This intersection did very well during the recession.”

Maize & Blue is a favorite of the campus jock crowd for its industrial-size sandwiches on high-quality bread, served with courtesy and care in a no-frills, nondescript storefront. For the new location, Rahmani and the Sukkars wanted the same food in a better-looking space: “There were a lot of standards we had to meet, in terms of design,” Omar says. The windows are the most spectacular part of the build-out; on warm days they fold back to make Maize & Blue virtually a sidewalk cafe, and because it faces E. Liberty it’s a good deal quieter than the Main St. scene. He admits he stole the window idea from the Black Pearl and says “they were double the price of typical windows, but I think well worth it. I didn’t hesitate.”

The menu at downtown Maize & Blue is identical to South U’s–strong on gargantuan sandwiches, with the few salads seemingly an afterthought (the phrase “for the ladies” springs irresistibly to mind here). But lack of a fryer doesn’t mean cold and dry: many of the sandwiches are grilled and packed with coleslaw, sauerkraut, and other juicy ingredients. A lot of jocks, especially weight lifters, says Omar–a lifter himself–try to eat a gram of protein a day for every pound of body weight; to boost the protein count, half a dozen sandwiches are topped with a fried egg. If you’re a lifter, Omar particularly recommends the Triple Play Reuben, for its “sixty-plus grams of protein, and complex-carb sourdough rye bread.”

Maize & Blue Deli, 106 E. Liberty, 436-8537. Mon.-Thurs. 9 a.m.-9 p.m., Fri. 9 a.m.-10 p.m., Sat. 10 a.m.-10 p.m., Sun. 10 a.m.-7 p.m. maizeandbluedeli.com.