If the blur of swift-footed students and chugging buses amid Kenmore Square’s colossal storefronts gives you a sense that you’re far from home, descend into the Heritage Café’s subterranean digs and do some excavating of your gastronomic roots. As an employee explains, the "heritage" in the menu is like the collegiate swarms that buzz by on the sidewalks above: a little bit coming together from everywhere. But the selection of salads ($4.85–$6.75), soups ($3.50), burgers on bulkies ($7.99), and thick deli sandwiches ($4.99–$8.99) tastes more like home cooking for anyone who spent any time growing up around any city. Of course, since you order at the counter, the café lacks the nostalgic noisy clamor of waitresses pouring sour coffee and giving you severe looks when you ask for more coleslaw. But take one mouthful of a hot pastrami on pumpernickel ($8.99), grilled cheese ($4.99), or any of the other sandwiches — some of which come crammed with sauerkraut, all of which are accompanied by pickles and either home-sliced fries, potato salad, pasta salad, or coleslaw — and you’re handed a first-class ticket to a place where Neil Simon, Woody Allen, and Jerry Seinfeld convene.

But to get back to the essential heritage, the café has a local accent all its own. It shouldn’t go unmentioned that vintage photos of Fenway Park, hang on ketchup- and mustard-colored walls. And what’s more American than craving a frank at a ballgame?

Heritage Café, located at 636 Beacon Street, in Boston, is open daily from 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. Call (617) 369-9400.