SHERIDAN — Andrew Nord's earliest memory of a sloppy Joe comes with a soundtrack.
"Honestly, probably like the sloppy Joe song — ‘Lunch Lady Land’ with Adam Sandler and Chris Farley," said Nord, a chef at Smith Alley Brewing Co. in Sheridan. "When I think sloppy Joe, I think about that."
Sandler sings, “Yesterday's meatloaf is today's sloppy Joes,” and for Nord, that’s part of the joke.
It also crosses a line. He insists on crafting sloppy Joes with fresh ingredients.
Growing up in St. Louis Park, Minnesota, a suburb of Minneapolis, Nord had an unusual relationship with the iconic sandwich. His mother is a lunch lady at a school, sometimes serving the very dish that defined cafeteria cuisine for generations of American kids.
His father? Not a fan.
"My dad's name is Joe, and when he was in kindergarten, his teacher called him sloppy Joe," Nord said. "And he hates the sandwich now."
He may be the only one.
Steamboat Style
Recently, Nord found himself drawn into the sloppy Joe's orbit when Smith Alley Manager Will Purcell asked him to develop a special for Black Friday — the day after Thanksgiving when downtown Sheridan fills with Christmas shoppers during the annual Christmas Stroll.
"We were talking about the Christmas Stroll we have every year here," Nord said, recalling the menu brainstorming session. "Something kind of warm and that everybody would love. And it clicked because we're going to be busy, so we need something quick and good."
A sloppy Joe made perfect sense. It was a departure from Thanksgiving leftovers and it could be prepared in volume for a hungry crowd.
Nord's recipe starts simply: a diced green pepper and onion, sautéed and sweated down until fully cooked. Then comes the ground beef, browned in the same pan.
Next Nord adds the dry seasonings — cayenne, black pepper and brown sugar — followed by liquid smoke and Worcestershire sauce. Then the signature ingredient: about a quarter bottle of Smith Alley's house-made Steamboat Stout.
"I think it has a richness to it," Nord said. "And you get those toasty flavors from the beer. I think it just adds to the flavor. It's a booster."
The mixture cooks down until the alcohol evaporates and the liquid reduces. Nord finishes with yellow mustard and ketchup — and notably, no tomato paste — which is common in other recipes because it helps bind the loose meat.
"I just kind of let the sugar thicken it up a little bit," he said.
The result lands on a buttered brioche bun from Great Harvest Montana.
Sloppy Joe protocol is flexible and easy going as diners are encouraged to eat it with their hands, but also provided silverware.
The lowly sloppy Joe might be at the bottom of Americana comfort food totem pole, but it’s enjoying a revival. At Smith Alley Brewing Co. in Sheridan, chef Andrew Nord combined Steamboat Stout with a simple blend of ingredients and created his spin on the classic sammy. (David Madison, Cowboy State Daily) 
The lowly sloppy Joe might be at the bottom of Americana comfort food totem pole, but it’s enjoying a revival. At Smith Alley Brewing Co. in Sheridan, chef Andrew Nord combined Steamboat Stout with a simple blend of ingredients and created his spin on the classic sammy. (David Madison, Cowboy State Daily) 
The lowly sloppy Joe might be at the bottom of Americana comfort food totem pole, but it’s enjoying a revival. At Smith Alley Brewing Co. in Sheridan, chef Andrew Nord combined Steamboat Stout with a simple blend of ingredients and created his spin on the classic sammy. (David Madison, Cowboy State Daily)
Ranch Roots
Purcell likes to keep a spoon handy when feasting on a sloppy Joe. Like Nord, the sandwich comes smothered in nostalgia.
"Making them at my parent's ranch in Kansas, where I grew up," he said. "It was easy to make, and it fed a lot of people, which was ranch food."
Like many Americans of a certain generation, young Purcell's sloppy Joes came from a can.
"I think when we were kids, we actually used the Manwich out of the cans," he said. "And, you know, as things progressed, you find better recipes."
On Black Friday, Nord’s Steamboat sloppy Joe was a hit. One regular declared it the best sloppy Joe he'd ever had, said Purcell.
Nord made 10 pounds of the mixture that first weekend, and it sold out within two days.
"As popularity gains on it, it'll probably become a staple here because it's so easy to make," Purcell said.
Wyoming Scarcity
Despite its popularity with diners, finding a sloppy Joe on a Wyoming restaurant menu requires some hunting.
"I think there is a stigma about sloppy Joes that it's not worthy enough for their menu," Purcell said. "I don't want to say it's frowned upon, but people just overlook it."
In Cheyenne, the Bread Basket Bakery offers a sloppy Joe lunch plate with chips and a drink for $8.
At Bubba's Breakfast & Barbeque in Jackson, the menu includes a clever riff on the sloppy Joe. It’s a $15 sandwich combining prime brisket and pulled pork called the sloppy Bubba.
Sloppy History
The sloppy Joe is having a moment. In August, The New Yorker magazine devoted considerable attention to Farley's, a new counter-service restaurant in Brooklyn's Bed-Stuy neighborhood specializing entirely in sloppy Joe sandwiches.
"The sloppy Joe is an unsung icon of Americana cooking, several rungs down the ladder of respectability from its more celebrated quick-serve cousins, such as the hamburger and the chili dog," the magazine noted, before adding that "even in its most slapdash form" it "is a genuinely delicious construction."
The sandwich's origins remain contested. The most widely accepted theory credits Ye Olde Tavern in Sioux City, Iowa, where a cook named Joe allegedly added tomato sauce to a loose meat sandwich sometime in the 1930s.
A competing theory points to a Cuban connection and the original sloppy Joe Bar in Havana, which served simple sandwiches to thirsty Americans who flooded Cuba during Prohibition. The creation drew on classic Cuban dishes like ropa vieja — beef mixed with tomatoes and spices.
Whatever its true origins, the sloppy Joe went mainstream in 1969 when Hunt's introduced Manwich, a canned sauce designed for busy home cooks. The slogan "A sandwich is a sandwich, but a Manwich is a meal" became ubiquitous in the 1970s as more women entered the workforce and convenience foods surged in popularity.
Comfort Classic
At Smith Alley, the Steamboat sloppy Joe delivers exactly what comfort food should — warmth on a chilly Wyoming day. The sweetness of the brown sugar plays against the savory onion and green pepper, all delightfully paired with the perfect side — tater tots — another school lunch mainstay. Chips and fries also go nicely.
"The best is like the leftover on the bottom that you use a chip or a fry to scoop up with," Nord said. "I think that's the best part of the sloppy Joe is getting all the drippings."
The allure is strong, as the “Lunch Lady Land” skit so eloquently expresses. A dancing sloppy Joe sandwich appears on stage and Sandler sings, “We all live together in our happy home. Thanks to sloppy Joe, sloppy, sloppy Joe, yeah, sloppy Joe…”
David Madison can be reached at david@cowboystatedaily.com.
