By: Tom Duggan – 03/24
Once considered the best Roast Beef on the North Shore, Harrison’s Roast Beef in North Andover has been purchased by Dean Chongris of Peabody who promises to restore the original recipe.
Chongris appeared on the Paying Attention! Podcast last month with Tom Duggan, revealing for the first time that Harrison’s will become Patrick’s and is set to open sometime this month.
First of all Harrison’s will always be remembered there,” Chongris said.
“We wanted to bring it back to the original Harrison’s recipe, so our plan is, – for starters – we’ve got Amanda who has 20 plus years working at Harrison. She and Emmet are going to help us maintain that Harrison’s taste and feel.”
“We are calling it the original Harrison’s menu.”
“Then we’ve got a Jim from the old Jim’s Kabab, who is also going to come in and work with us a few days a week.”
What we are trying to create is a legendary old school Lawrence Menu.”
“We’ve got Jim Mounir,” he said. “He’s bringing back the old Jim’s Kabob’s and Mounir’s menus.”
“I’m excited for Dean,” Mounir said.
Jim Mounir’s brother and sister ran Mounir’s while he ran Jim’s Kabob.
“He’s been working hard. I’ve been following how much work he’s been doing. I’m looking forward to working with him. I am bringing my own recipes for tahini, hummus, the steak cheese, salad, the kibbe, all the old Mounir’s recipes and Jim’s Kabob’s.”
“So Harrison‘s roast beef is merging with the old Mounir’s for the new Patrick’s that’s coming.
How does Amanda fit into this?
“I’m already excited. I was there (at Harrison’s for over 21 years. I’m looking forward to bringing the place back to what it used to be and what it should be. We’re going back to the original recipe for the roast beef, and then the original Mounir’s recipes.”
Jim Mounir said that he has always used a technique over the years of only using high-quality ingredients. “If it was something that I wouldn’t eat myself, I won’t serve it.”
“People can say what they want but The Merrimack Valley is still considered part of the North Shore,” Dean said.
“But it’s not our location. It’s our menu. We are looking at bringing back the local favorites, the original favorites, and ethnic favorites from north of Boston, and we are trying to incorporate a component of that at Patrick’s.”
“So, there’s nothing more ‘North-Shore’ than that roast beef sandwich. If you follow the North Shore Beefs on Facebook, there’s a 36,000-member cult following. They are a crazy group, but they are awesome. The sandwich means that much to these people that they follow it that hard. So, we looked at it locally and we said, ‘you know what, if we put a meatball and Italian sub out there, we are selling what everybody else sells.’”
“We want to sell unique and legendary!”
So, let’s remember something else that was iconic from Lawrence and that’s the old chicken barb. We’re going to have the old chicken barbs and we are calling it the Tally-Ho, because it’s from the old Tally-Ho in Lawrence.
All of that food was a part of Lawrence. It was part of the Merrimack Valley so what we’re putting together is a landmark menu. ◊