The Cleveland sandwich made with kielbasa, fries, barbecue sauce, and coleslaw is the Polish Boy. It is a signature sausage sandwich of Cleveland, Ohio, rather than a standard Polish sausage served by itself.
A typical Polish Boy places a grilled kielbasa in a bun and covers it with French fries, barbecue sauce, and coleslaw. Some restaurants fry the sausage briefly after grilling, and recipes differ in the sauce used. The combination creates a substantial sandwich with smoky sausage, crisp fries, tangy slaw, and sweet or spicy sauce.
The dish is linked to Cleveland’s Polish and broader Eastern European food traditions, but its exact creator is not firmly established. Freddie’s Southern Style Rib House became one of the sandwich’s best-known purveyors, and Cleveland restaurants have continued to interpret it in their own ways.
The name can cause confusion with the Maxwell Street Polish, a Chicago sausage sandwich usually topped with grilled onions and mustard. Those are different regional specialties, while the defining toppings here point to the Cleveland Polish Boy.