LANCASTER − Some foods are synonymous with a city or town. Think New York pizza or Philadelphia cheesesteaks.
For Lancaster, think Jimmy’s Jawbreaker.
Jimmy Mast created it in the ’50s. It’s a cheeseburger with lettuce, tomato, another hamburger piled on and the Jimmy’s Jawbreaker sauce.
The Jumbo Jawbreaker has three meat patties and Law Breaker has four patties.
Mast’s daughter, Jamie Mast, has been selling the iconic sandwich from her The Original Jimmy’s Jawbreaker trailer since 1989 at various Fairfield County locations. She gets the meat from Bay Food Market. Since her father trademarked the sandwich decades ago, Mast must make it exactly as her father did.
“Little did I know this was going to be my livelihood,” she said. “I was going to take care of my children, my house payment, my car payment, whatever. So I’ve been doing it now for 37 years.”
Along with famous burgers, Mast sells fair-cut fries cooked to order with a variety of toppings and cannolis for dessert, along with drinks, including sun-brewed iced tea, a fresh-squeezed lemon shake-up and bottled water.
The Original Jimmy’s Jawbreaker trailer will be at several locations this year, including downtown for the Lancaster Festival until July 25.
It will also be at the county fair, Lithopolis Honeyfest, the Carroll Community Day and the Freedom’s Never Free event. In June, the trailer was at a car show at the fairgrounds.
After owning her business for so long, and nearing 70, Mast said she still loves what she does.
“But when you work like 17 days straight, and it takes you a week to get ready for it and a week to clean up after it, it’s a long haul,” she said. “When I was 32, it was easy. But we have got to come to terms with that and letting people help us. So we’ll see. I’m not planning on kicking the bucket yet. I’ve got a couple more good years in me. We’ll just see how staffing goes and events go. Really how the world goes.”
Besides the food trailer, Mast previously owned a convenience store with her husband, Rich, called Rich and Jamie’s Place. After selling that business, she opened Diamond Jim’s Pizza on Columbus Street. Mast closed that business in 2018.
“Which I love and I miss,” she said of the pizza shop. “Believe me, I miss that. It makes me very emotional to think about that. That was a great place. That was a great family place. People loved it. But again, I was doing that from 7 in the morning until midnight, and then I was running a trailer. Something had to give or I was.”
jbarron@gannett.com
740-681-4340
Twitter/X: @jeffrey_ba7142
This article originally appeared on Lancaster Eagle-Gazette: The story behind Lancaster’s iconic Jimmy’s Jawbreaker trailer
Reporting by Jeff Barron, Lancaster Eagle-Gazette / Lancaster Eagle-Gazette
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Jeff Barron, Lancaster Eagle-Gazette | USA TODAY Network
