Fall north of Boston, as seen from the Beef counter.
At 7 a.m. it's 41 degrees, and the neighbor is out in the driveway hosing off the kayak. By Thursday it's back up to 80 and the beach is full again. The week after that, a nor'easter knocks down half the leaves and drags boats off their moorings and onto the rocks.
That's fall in Beef Country, the 66 towns north of Boston. For more than two months it goes back and forth between summer and winter, and complaining about it is how people say hello. Somewhere in there you get a few days, sunny and 65, when nobody complains about anything. Then sometime in November it's dark by 4:30 p.m., and winter wins.
The summer people go home after Labor Day, and by early October the leaf peepers move in. Plenty of them are about to have their first North Shore roast beef sandwich, which locals just call a Beef. It's rare, sliced thin, and piled on a toasted, buttered roll, nothing like the cold stuff in the deli case. If it's not pink, it's not a Beef.
The First Cold Morning
One morning you see your breath on the front step and go back in to throw on a long-sleeve shirt. At noon, everyone in line at the Beef shop is wearing one too. The grill and the fryer are both going, and the place smells like Beefs, pizza, and fried seafood. Anywhere else, you'd need three restaurants to get all that.
The heat at home stays off, though. Around here you hold out until Halloween, or Thanksgiving if you're stubborn. The whole house lives in sweatshirts, and every conversation eventually gets around to whether you've caved yet.
Long-sleeve weather at the orchard.
Don't cave. 3WAYS gear ships wherever you landed.
The Visitors
Most of Beef Country knows to stay out of Salem this time of year. If you live there, you learn to work around it. Destination Salem counts more than a million visitors in October, in a city of about 45,000. At least one of them, in a cape or a witch hat, will ask you where the "Hocus Pocus" house is while you're getting the mail. You get your Beefs delivered and count the days until November.
Even the skeletons know to stay at the end of the wharf.
Outside Salem, the leaf peepers take over Route 127 on Cape Ann and Route 133 through Essex, doing 15 in a 30 and pulling over to photograph a maple you've driven past your whole life. It's a nice maple, to be fair. For about a week every October the trees turn red and orange practically overnight, and even locals stop to look.
The Topsfield Fair has been running since 1818, and on fair weekends nothing on Route 1 moves except the line at Dunks.
Sooner or later, somebody from out of town steps up to the counter at a Beef shop and asks for "a roast beef sandwich with mayo, barbecue sauce, and cheese, please." The guy behind the counter nods and yells "Three-Way" over his shoulder. Next time, they'll just say Three-Way.
Beef On: read The North Shore Roast Beef Guide: Ordering, Lingo & Local Life in Beef Country
Go Up a Hill Instead
Skip the peeper traffic and walk up to the color. Holt Hill, at Ward Reservation in Andover, is the closest thing to a mountain for miles, and at 420 feet it barely counts. From the top on a clear day, you can see the Boston skyline. People from Andover stood in the same spot in 1775 and watched Charlestown burn during the Battle of Bunker Hill.
In Ipswich, walk up Castle Hill at the Crane Estate. From the top, the Grand Allée rolls straight down to the ocean, and the salt marsh around Crane Beach goes gold by late October. Bring a fleece. The wind off the water doesn't care that it was 70 yesterday.
Then go get a Beef. Nobody comes down off a cold hill and orders a Junior, the small one.
The Great Marsh, gold by late October.
Apple Picking
Every year you pick more apples than anyone will eat, and nobody ever makes the pie.
Most families have a farm they always go back to, whether it's Russell's in Ipswich, Brooksby in Peabody, Connors in Danvers, Smolak in North Andover, or Cider Hill in Amesbury. Everybody's loyal to theirs, just not Beef-shop loyal.
The donuts are another story. Half of Beef Country wants them rolled in cinnamon sugar, and the other half says a real cider donut is plain. Which side are you on?
Straight out of the fryer. Sugar's up to you.
Beef On: read Beef First. Sweet Second. The Beef Country Dessert Order.
Home for Thanksgiving
By Thanksgiving the peepers have gone home, and the people who grew up here start coming back. The college kids roll in Tuesday night, and the ones who moved away for work land Wednesday afternoon. A lot of them stop at a Beef shop before they've hugged their moms. They order the same thing they've ordered since they were kids: a Super, extra sauce. Wednesday night they're at the townie bar running into everyone from high school.
Thursday morning, the bleachers fill up from Newburyport to Medford and Gloucester to Chelmsford, most of the crowd holding a large regular they can't feel through their gloves. Some of these games are older than anyone in the stands. Medford and Malden have been playing since 1889, Beverly and Salem since 1891, and plenty of fans first came with their grandparents.
In 1938, a Lowell High halfback named Jack Kerouac scored the only touchdown against Lawrence in front of 14,000 people, almost 20 years before "On the Road."
The Fleece Never Left
Nobody in Beef Country puts the fleece away. It hangs by the door all year, because the weather here changes by the hour. Fall is just when the fleece moves to the front of the hook.
You eat your Beef on the seawall or around the kitchen island with whoever's home for the weekend. By the time the heat finally goes on, the ice cream stands have boarded up their windows for the season. The Beef shop never does.
Sweatshirt weather is Beef weather.
Because a Beef is a sandwich for all seasons.
Quick Answers
What is a North Shore roast beef sandwich? Rare roast beef, sliced thin and piled on a toasted, buttered roll. In the towns north of Boston, Massachusetts, locals just call it a Beef, and the classic order is a Three-Way.
What's a Three-Way? A Beef with extra-heavy mayo, James River barbecue sauce, and white American cheese.
What do Junior and Super mean? They're the sizes. A Junior is the small one, a Regular is in the middle, and a Super is the biggest on the board, usually on an onion roll. The full rundown is in our ordering guide.
When is the Topsfield Fair? It runs for about 10 days every fall and wraps up on the second Monday in October. Go on a weekday if you can. Dates change every year, so check the Topsfield Fair site.
Where can I see fall color north of Boston? Color usually peaks here in mid to late October. Inland towns turn first, and the coast hangs on longest because the ocean keeps it a little warmer. Just about any short trail works. A few local favorites, one in each region of Beef Country:
- Greater Boston: Middlesex Fells, more than 2,000 acres of woods and ponds spread across Medford, Malden, Melrose, Stoneham, and Winchester.
- North Shore: Breakheart Reservation in Saugus, wooded hills and two lakes a few minutes off Route 1.
- Cape Ann: Ravenswood Park in Gloucester, about 10 miles of woodland paths and a lookout over Gloucester Harbor.
- Seacoast: Maudslay State Park in Newburyport, an old estate with trails along the Merrimack and gardens ringed in fall color.
- Merrimack Valley: Weir Hill in North Andover, a short climb with a view over Lake Cochichewick.
Wherever you're reading this from, show us what fall looks like there. Tag @3WAYSBeef.
Want more Beef Country stories?
3WAYS North Shore Beef™
Saucy. Slightly Salty. That's how we roll.
Beef On™
