Don’t let the six-foot tall purple and gold wizard sculpture standing by the entrance of the kitchen at Between Two Buns (1271 Homer Street) throw you off; these guys mean serious business when it comes to creating sandwiches.

The recently opened Yaletown restaurant co-owned by Jeff Sato, Scott Papousek, and chef Shaun Snelling makes just a few things, but they aim to do them really well.

“When I go out, I mean, not a lot of places are impressive, just lack of focus, so what we’re focusing on is just making sandwiches be the best they can be. We’re taking one little subsection of something and making it the best we possibly can,” Sato told the Straight by phone. “The concept for me was to find a great chef and have him make sandwiches for us, so all the sandwiches would be chef created, we do everything from scratch, and we’re trying to use as much local and organic as possible.”

Sato’s “great chef” is Snelling, who previously worked as chef de cuisine at West Vancouver’s Fraiche Restaurant and at the Opus Hotel.

“He actually had a dream to open up a sandwich shop as well, so it kind of worked perfectly. We had one lunch meeting and then it kind of spiralled from there,” Sato said.

Snelling has created five sandwiches ($9 to $11) for Between Two Buns’ chalkboard menu. Bacon lovers will want to try The Maniac, filled with double-smoked bacon, baby arugula, spicy marinara, asiago cheese, roasted garlic parmesan aioli, and oven roasted tomatoes.

“It’s like an Italian BLT, but we’re kind of taking the BLT to the next level—more flavour, more ingredients, lots of bacon,” Snelling told the Straight.

Meanwhile, vegetarians and vegans can sink their teeth into The Hot Chick, a hearty mix of Moroccan chick pea patty, roasted red pepper harissa, baby arugula, and grilled zucchini.

“I just wanted to have a small menu that has something for everybody. Make sure that I have a vegan sandwich on the menu, a steak, and we have some pork,” Snelling said. “Being a chef I like pork products and that’s why there’s two pork sandwiches on the menu.”

Snelling’s other ode to pork is Cheeky—the restaurant’s top seller—which layers braised Paradise Valley pork cheek over smoked emmental cheese, caramelized bacon aioli, and housemade creamy coleslaw.

“All of our sauces are made in house,” Snelling said. “The only thing that we outsource is our bread [which they get from Boulangerie la Parisienne just a few blocks away].”

To accompany the list of sandwiches, is a selection of sides ranging from soup, salad, or coleslaw($3), to poutine ($5) made with Kennebec fries, housemade smoked meat gravy, and Quebec cheese curds.

“We’re still getting everything set up because we’re so new,” Snelling said. “We’re kind of getting feedback from people to develop the menu, and just getting an idea of what everybody in the neighbourhood wants.”

You can follow Michelle da Silva on Twitter at twitter.com/michdas.