Jason Erickson and Peter Landsheft of Heights Café on Park Boulevard offer a curious sandwich that only about one in 50 people recognize. Unless you’re from Buffalo, N.Y., you’ve probably never heard of Beef on Weck, a piling of slow-cooked roast beef lumped into a round kummelweck, which translates from German to “caraway roll.”

The sandwich, developed by early German immigrants of Buffalo, is still an omnipresent offering in that city’s taverns and small restaurants – no less common than Buffalo chicken wings. Yet wander just a few short miles outside of Buffalo, and the term “beef on weck” is as foreign to consumers as “carne asada” might be to Northeasterners deprived of authentic Mexican cuisine.

Caraway seeds and course kosher salt are embedded into the roll’s crown and baked to a semi-crusty finish. In its classic preparation, the sandwich takes on a thin slathering of prepared white horseradish, which adds further oomph and tang to the beef. Erickson says, however, that he and Landsheft, who is a native of Buffalo, have found that Southern Californians don’t care for the sinus-bursting attributes of straight horseradish, so they’ve cut it down with sour cream and Worcestershire sauce for a mellower effect. And in yet another slight variation, they slap onto each sandwich a slice of Provolone cheese for extra richness.

“I’m not sure how the addition of cheese would go over in Buffalo,” says Landsheft, who recalls selling “a lot of beef on weck” while growing up in his family’s restaurant business in Buffalo. “But I thought that Provolone would give the sandwich a little bit of a California twist.”

Landsheft adds that he’s never seen beef on weck offered on menus anywhere outside of Buffalo – not even while living in Minneapolis, where a large German community exists.

Because local bakery suppliers are unfamiliar with kummelweck, the men buy their rolls half-baked from Solunto Baking Company in Little Italy and then add the caraway seeds and kosher salt themselves before finishing the baking process in their café oven.

“We worked with Solunto’s to develop the right consistency of the rolls so that they don’t turn soggy once the hot roast beef is piled on,” says Erickson. And of the beef used for making the sandwiches, “We slow cook our own top sirloin roasts, which fall apart when we slice it because it’s so tender,” he adds. The sandwiches cost $4.95 apiece, and Erickson says they sell at least a dozen beef on wecks a day. “More and more people are continuing to discover and fall in love with them. And when people from Buffalo find out we serve the sandwiches, they spread the word to others who are Buffalo transplants.”

It was in Minneapolis where the two men became friends. Erickson worked at a store that sold homemade ice cream. And Landsheft ran a coffee shop and deli. After separately relocating to San Diego within a short period of time, they decided to combine their restaurant experience locally by taking over the University Heights café that formerly was Soup & Salad. They expanded on the concept by adding to the menu Italian sandwiches, pasta dishes, spanikopita (Greek spinach pie) and homemade ice cream.

Their menu also includes a variety of homemade soups, a number of them vegan, such as black bean chili, pasta fagioli and spinach-lentil. From the “build-your-own” salad bar, customers can choose from more than a dozen salad fixings, including blueberries, grapes, artichokes, chunk tuna and more. Homemade dressings include mint-honey and tomato-garlic, both retained from the former owner’s recipe files, plus a new sun-dried tomato dressing that Erickson terms as “the crack of salad dressings because once you try it, you have to go back to it.”

The small café, which also serves beer and wine, seats about eight customers inside and 10 on the sidewalk patio.

“This is one of the best neighborhoods in San Diego,” says Erickson. “Nearly 40 percent of our business comes from the GLBT community, which is a very loyal clientele and in some ways very demanding because they know good quality products and patronize businesses that provide them.”

Heights Café is located at 4646 Park Blvd. It is open from 11:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m., daily. For more information, call (619) 294-7687.