On today’s internet, although pump-handle models are nearly impossible to find, new Fresh-O-Matics are abundant. On the massive Knoxville-based restaurant supply site KaTom.com, there is an entire subsection for “Sandwich & Deli Steamers” listing 20(!) different options alongside the original, priced from $600 to $1,600, with suggested uses ranging from heating pasta to steaming clams. Most are shallow with big, square surfaces — the type you’d see manned by a stoned undergrad gassing tortillas at your neighborhood Chipotle — but there are a couple of purpose-built sandwich models still in the mix.

The relative simplicity of the machine — and the lack of ambient flammable grease produced by it — is likely a key component of its proliferation, although this still doesn’t explain why it gained such a foothold specifically in Knoxville. Peter Lanois, a former chef who went to UT in the ’80s, laid out the basics of commercial kitchen economics for me: From at least the 1950s onward, to operate a flat-top grill, pizza oven, or even a deep fryer, a kitchen needed an industrial ventilation hood with a fire suppression system. Today, the ballpark price of such a system is around $1,000 per linear foot, with the average hood 10-14 feet long. Add this to the initial cost of those larger appliances, and your minimum equipment cost is well into the five-digit realm — most likely implausible for a mid-century immigrant start-up and definitely implausible for a neighborhood convenience-store owner today, already fighting the battle against grocery, gas-station, and fast-food chains. On the other hand, Lanois said, “the sandwich steamer was a [relatively] cheap and non-regulatory solution to traditional baked subs.”

A Fresh-O-Matic, a slicer, and a refrigerated prep table, and you’re in business for a few grand. You don’t even really need tables; there are stories of market and deli owners refusing to offer seating. Customers just shrugged and ate their sandwiches off the empty shelves that once held groceries.

In 2019, the mythos of the machine itself could nearly stand alone. Dennis Parton said he has one steamer he’s kept running for 45 years; no other deli owners could believe that’s possible. Old-timers speak reverentially about the heyday of Ali Baba Time Out Delicatessen, a now-shuttered 24-hour joint in West Knoxville rumored to have blown through two steamers every six months, creating a trickle-down supply of cheap, refurbishable models for the little guys. I spoke with several civilian enthusiasts — including both my father and stepfather — who have put years of casual browsing into trying to track down old models on eBay for home use.

When you poke around Knoxville asking about Fresh-O-Matics, one singular, mythical figure rises above the chatter, again and again: Gene Kitts. If today’s pump-handle devotees resemble that loose cadre of folks who keep old German diesels running on swapped parts and 50 years of healthful grime, Kitts is the guy with the garage full of dead-stock odds and ends, the guy you call when you’ve got problems too big for your own ingenuity. He’s the one, and, these days, he’s the only one. His company is Kitts Carbonation Service, but no one can really remember a time when he worked on soda fountains, or draught lines, or anything but Fresh-O-Matics. If you can manage to get your hands on three steamers that don’t work, he can turn them into two that do, and you’re in business. He covers all of Knox County, of course, but he also has a confirmed presence in Sevier, Union, and Blount counties. I wouldn’t be surprised if the few folks still steaming in Johnson City and Kingsport make the two-hour drive to him for repairs.

Most folks I talked with guessed that Kitts is in his 70s, though, and that worries them a bit.

“Every time something breaks down, I hope Mr. Kitts is still alive when I call,” one deli owner told me. “I pray he lives to be 100, because there’s no one else.”