Cheap Eats: Bison Witches

The Wildcat, with roast beef, turkey and Gouda (Credit: Andi Berlin/Special to Metromix)

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A meal for two under $20

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What we ordered: One chili cheese nachos ($6.25), one Cally half sandwich on wheat bread with salt and vinegar potato chips ($4.50), one Wildcat half sandwich and soup ($7.50) for a total of $18.25, just under our Cheap Eats goal of $20 for two people.

Comments: Bison Witches near the University of Arizona wants you to buy sandwiches so much, they make it almost impossible not to. For the one thing, their menu is comprised almost solely of Atkins Diet disasters. Everything else, from their chicken cheese nachos to the chef salad served in a bread bowl, either sounds disgusting or is.

Bison Witches is a great place to go, but not if you’re on a diet. Their hunks of bread, although tasty, are unusually large. The mayo they use probably has more calories than entire sandwiches anywhere else. And the beer selection, worst of all, is more than compelling.

You have to go in there expecting to gain a little. Otherwise, it’s just not going to work. I tried eating healthy a few months ago and the salad I ordered (from what I remember) looked like it was rummaged out of a waste basket. The shredded lettuce was thinly spread onto this huge tray, and was covered with tortilla chips.

Food: Wary of a repeat, my friend and I decided to ditch any apprehensions we might have had and go straight for the gold: chili cheese nachos. The enormous dish stretched across a tray. In addition to chili meat, the chips had tomatoes, raw jalapeno slices and two types of cheese, nacho and shredded. The chili was spread evenly and every chip had some kind of sauce covering it. (Don’t you just hate when there’s not enough to go around?) It was pretty good.

When we got to the sandwiches, I must admit there was kind of a mix-up. I didn’t realize that the Cally sandwich came on a croissant until after I was set on it, so I decided to switch to wheat bread. When my friend heard you could have a croissant, he wanted the croissant. So neither of us got a sandwich exactly how it was written on the menu, but everything is easily switch-able anyway.

The Cally, although ordered as a half sandwich, was large enough to eat as an entire meal. After all those tortilla chips, I didn’t even break into my Poore Brothers salt and vinegar chips bag. The sandwich itself was kind of like a fattening version of a Baggin’s sandwich. It had sliced turkey, cream cheese, mayo, sprouts and avocado, which all combined together to make a sort of creamy mush. It was amazing, though; only at times the mayonnaise just seemed too thick.

The Wildcat sandwich with roast beef, turkey and Gouda was only supposed to be a half because it had a bread bowl. But the sandwich came out in full, with contained chips. (Although it was a bit smaller because it was on a croissant.) I only had a taste, but the honey-based Russian mustard made it sweet and spicy at the same time. My friend said it was one of the best sandwiches he’s ever had, and I thought it was delicious. The cream of broccoli soup in the bread bowl, however, made me nauseated after a few bites. It was good at first but then began to taste like straight nacho cheese mixed with a ton of cream. I didn’t see much broccoli in it.

Service: The waitresses are always women and usually dress scantily.

Bar: Full bar, with eight beers on tap and a long list of domestics, imports and microbrews.

Bottom line: Bison Witches is a great college hangout, complete with television screens and servers with attitude. Its only problem is that it could single-handedly induce the freshman 15 if utilized too liberally. Our advice is to keep the visits sparse, so when you come you can really eat.

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