This Quiznos related This American Life segment has to be one of my favorites, just because the story seems so delightfully preposterous. The Little Sandwichmaker That Could.
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I’m not sure if it’s because I’m Australian, but everything depicted in this video seems absolutely disgusting to me.
Then again, Subway is stench of death for me. I have to walk past one between the station and my work whenever I take the train, and I hold my breath every time. How can people work there?
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Better them than me - oh, wait, you mean something else 
I’d love for Subway to have serious competition that would make it have to up it’s game. It’s processed “teriyaki” chicken and “oven roasted” chicken are disgusting processed chicken substances that taste like a vaguely chicken flavored cellulose sponge.
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Being television-deficient, I have never seen these commercials until today. I love them. I would eat the sandwiches just to support the advertising.
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The only thing I like about Subway is that they offer unlimited veggies (that at least appear to be fresh). I don’t go in for gimmicky sandwiches like teriyaki slop or meatball crap. Just give me a few slices of turkey or ham, a little mustard and a bunch of veggies on a wheat roll and I’m good.
And a personal anecdote about Quiznos…I worked for a technology vendor who had Quiznos as a customer. I remember them as being one of the most awful and cheapest clients I ever worked with. But so were most other QSR (quick service restaurant) accounts. I guess their margins are so slim they squeeze their vendors for every fraction of a penny they can to make up for it. Seems like a horrible business model.
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Subway owners have to buy all of their food from Subway, even if they could get local vegetables of comparable or better quality faster and cheaper. I guess they and other QSRs (first I’ve heard the term) try to make up for that by being cheap on everything they do have a say in… :-/
IIRC, there was something wonky about the Quznos franchise deals. Can’t remember what it was off hand, though.
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a “creepy sponge monkey”
Strikes me more as a “creepy sponge rat.” What a bunch of greedy, incompetent corporate executives – they’ll sink even the best business ideas.
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I’ve been to Australia, and there’s no shortage of large toasted sandwiches there. No idea what in this video you would find disgusting. Meat on bread with vegetables and cheese? That’s not an American invention.
I hear that every once in awhile, and don’t understand that, either. The Subways around here smell like baking bread. Sometimes like cleaning products, when they’ve been cleaned. Death, never.
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I didn’t know about the franchisees’ situation, but it’s sad.
I remember waiting years for a Quiznos to open near me after trying one out of town. When they opened, they were expensive, but full of meats, and delicious. Eventually the prices went up, the portions went down (wait - you want me to pay the higher “extra meat” price for the same sandwich I ate yesterday?), and I just took them out of my rotation.
None of that means I switched to Subway. A loaf of bread with 2 slices of meat sucks no matter how much lettuce they’ll add to it for me.
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They’re not spongemonkeys, but SPONG monkeys. That’s funnier!
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There are definitely local Subways I’ve walked out of because they smell bad. It’s not a franchise-wide thing, but it’s common enough. Many lack proper ventilation or air-conditioning (perhaps that’s part of that cheaping out MikeKStar noticed in the industry) and perhaps they aren’t cleaning properly or taking out the trash often enough. And some seem to have their refrigerated prep tables set at too high a temp. Regardless of the reason, I won’t eat in the stores that smell bad.
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My most interesting takeaway from reading Fast Food Nation was not the gross-out meat processing part but rather learning about the realities of franchising. Subway is like the cheapest franchise you can buy into but it also has some of the most onerous conditions which end up with many franchisees making little or nothing in terms of profit. I seem to recall that the conclusion was you could only make a profit as a Subway franchisee by owning multiple stores, which probably explains why there are so many of them around.
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That’s quite a trick corporate tries to pull. "Hey, we've got a great new promotion that will drive a lot of new traffic. So, instead of selling 1 sandwich for the price of 1 sandwich, sell 2 sandwiches for the price of 1 sandwich. And how do you make up for the lost profit? Volume."
I understand why a McDonalds would make a franchisee buy their sesame seed bun or their meat patty. But to make a Quiznos make them buy their lettuce? Because a locally bought lettuce/tomato/etc might be too fresh or too flavorful?
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And those aren’t as bad as their cheesesteak. shiver
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Yeah, that kind of promotion does seem pretty self-serving for Subway, making franchisees sell at half-price, all while Subway makes them buy the ingredients at full price.
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as a motion graphics designer i absolutely love the sponge monkeys and at the time i was a college kid and wanted quiznos all the time because of it. their ads were awesome! i’m sad that quiznos is gone. it was a great sandwich. never understood about their high prices though until watching this video. what i wouldn’t give for a cold refreshing josta and a chicken carbonera.
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I had kind of the opposite reaction. As a motion graphics artist at the time, I hated the whole genre of crappy animation that became so common on the net back then. Then to have Quiznos elevate crappy, lazy web animation to a national campaign… Ugh. Hated every bit of it. I still ate sometimes at Quiznos, but the campaign left a bad impression with me that lasts to this day. And I’m so glad that style died, though it was a lingering death that lasted all too long.
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Supply chain control and profit. The profit is easy enough, corporate makes the money they save with bulk purchases. The more interesting one is supply chain control. Think of every big food poisoning outbreak from any chain restaurant. Do you remember which franchisee that outbreak came from? The corporate parent has every reason to be sure no one is cutting corners on that stuff. There are also the bland supply chain desires, like a consistent product and things like that.
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at the time the tools were becoming more accessible to to artists; the internet and flash was taking over (homestar runner, joe cartoon, etc). i still see things occasionally that remind me of those older styles. whether it’s intentional or not i appreciate it.
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