[Vox] End of $5 Footlong at Subway. (Going regional with promos)

[VirtualLarry]

https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/9/13/17845914/subway-5-dollar-footlong-sandwich-discontinued

 

[UglyCasanova]

Shucks

 

[DaveSimmons]

That's fine with me, I'd rather my favorite purveyor of meatball subs stay in business than go bankrupt losing money on this.

 

[BarkingGhostar]

Italian BMT was the only sub at Subway I would tolerate. Otherwise I'd go with the only alternative chain, Firehouse, for everything else.

 

[Exterous]

I'm not surprised but, personally, there are quite a few places I'd rather go than subway

 

[deadlyapp]

Haven't gone to a subway on purpose in many years. When their subs ended up turning into mostly bread sandwiches I lost interest. Yes, they are one of the best for adding toppings but I prefer something with a bit more meat.

 

[Genx87]

Been years since I had this crappy food.

 

[thebestMAX]

Subways in S Floriduh have gotten so bad we stopped going there when a few WaWa stores opened up. So far no disappointments. They just need a few of those old "Eat and get Gas" signs out front.

 

[Thebobo]

And remember take a ruler.

 

[snoopy7548]

I haven't had Subway in a really long time. I always felt like complete crap after eating one of their footlongs.

 

[darkswordsman17]

This doesn't surprise me, and I think most were already doing a lot of their own promotions (which is why a lot of them bitched when they were forcing the $5 footlongs again). But Subway has raised their prices (even a fucking veggie is almost $6 now), so they're getting worse. They aren't great but, based on the sub shops here (Phoenix), they're far and away a better value than pretty much anyone else. Most other places are $10 for decent sized (similar if not usually smaller than Subway footlong) sandwich. Jimmie John's is like $8-9 for one that's between a 6 inch and footlong Subway. Firehouse is $10-12 for a footlong sized sub (which seems to be about the norm for other chains here), and in my experience worse than Subway about fucking things up (since they make it behind the counter where you can't see you don't know what's going on and what, plus they like charging for extras). Schlotsky's has a lot more variety of food which is nice, but they were fairly expensive I thought (and holy shit at Cinnabon's prices). Jersey Mike's was stupid priced when I went there so I haven't been pack. Haven't tried Potbelly yet, or "which which", and there's others that I forget (and others that I've eaten elsewhere, Planet Sub, Quizno's, Chompies, Mr Goodcents). Panera Bread and places like that are in my experience way overpriced and I don't consider them equal to sub shops either so I won't even bother remarking beyond that (which I like soup in a bread bowl and some other stuff at Panera, but they're damn overpriced for what you're getting).

The delis at grocery stores and stuff are a crap shoot too. Some are ok priced, but there's a bunch of them trying to charge over $5 for simple 2 standard sliced bread sized sandwiches (Which is like a 6 inch Subway sub if that even).

Oh and of course the Subways are a crapshoot. Some are terrible, some are decent, most are meh.

Haven't gone to a subway on purpose in many years. When their subs ended up turning into mostly bread sandwiches I lost interest. Yes, they are one of the best for adding toppings but I prefer something with a bit more meat.

Uh...

They used to be reasonably priced on double meat and stuff. Now sure it might not top these magical 2 foot long New York deli sandwiches for $3 or whatever bullshit people always claim, but in my experience they'd still be cheaper with paying for extra meat than most other places are for their standard subs and they'll come with more meat than those do most of the time. But with the increased prices it'd probably be about equal in price or meat you get per $.

They also have wraps now that you supposedly get double meat on (so the meat to bread ratio should be way up). But you probably would want to make sure to remind the employee that it comes with double meat standard because Subways employees tend not to be the best and some I think the manager is a stingy asshole so tells them only to put on some small amount unless the customer requests more.

I haven't had Subway in a really long time. I always felt like complete crap after eating one of their footlongs.

Eating a footlong should be quite a meal for most people, so I'm not surprised at that. And if you have a soft drink and/or chips, then yeah, you'll be feeling pretty shitty from stuffing yourself.

 

[darkswordsman17]

Something that pisses me off is how expensive adding bacon has gotten, especially since bacon prices seem to have fallen (can get a lb of national brand bacon at Wal-Mart for like $3-5 and its been closer to the $3 lately, the Wal-Mart brand pre-cooked bacon is $2 and its got like 18 smaller but not tiny slices of bacon). If you add bacon at a restaurant its like $2 for 2-3 slices and most of those are pre-cooked or not exactly thick cut slices. Subway is about the best priced on that and even there its not great value (usually get I think 4-6 slices per 6", so double that on a footlong, and its I think ~$2 to add bacon).

Which, prices on some breakfast foods has gone down. Saw Carl Jrs was advertising 2 sausage & egg biscuits for $2, it was like $3 for a 4 pack of bacon egg and cheese biscuits/croissants (when those seemed like they were like $5 before) at the grocery store.

That's fine with me, I'd rather my favorite purveyor of meatball subs stay in business than go bankrupt losing money on this.

If they were losing money on a $5 footlong meatball/ham/other basic sub then they're fucked as a business (well unless they were loading it up with tons of meat), they were in no danger from going bankrupt (maybe poorly managed individual Subways, which, there's one on almost every damn corner here). This is trying to appease their franchisees as they raised hell over the $5 footlong thing (which they claimed was because they'd lose money which is bullshit, most of the ones that ran their own promotions had better deals than that - there's one here that does 3 subs for $17 and it includes ones that were never $5 footlongs and usually $7-8 each, another had a free 6" sub if you bought a footlong and a drink - which at the time and before Subway pushed the $5 footlong deal again, many were already $5 - the veggie was like $4, ham/turkey was $5 and most rang up a BLT as ham, the club was often around $5-6, and I think the grilled chicken was around $6 or $3.50 for a 6"). After the $5 footlong promotion, if those subs weren't the $5 sub of the day, they went up in price. Even the frickin veggie is over $5.50 now at the Subways down here.

I guess Subway might have raised the prices on the backend, but they should've been speaking about that and not saying just that $5 footlongs would make them lose money if they weren't losing money while offering them almost everyday before then. And if they were in high rent areas, then WTF are you doing trying to run a budget minded franchise like Subway for there?

 

[Sonikku]

I loved it when they sold meatball half longs for $2. Would get a whole for 4 with extra sauce, provolone and shredded parmesan cheese. It was a good deal. Then they wanted $6.70 for it. Then they cut back on the meat. I like meat and I make no apologies, I don't want more cabbage and shit. Subway has been dead to me for some time.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Yeah, there's a few Subway shops in town, and a few in neighboring towns. I like their subs, kind of. Well, they used to be cheap. I get coupons in the mail too, that make them fairly cheap. 2x Footlong for $11? Not all that different than $5 footlongs.

We do have some pizza shops, that "specialize" in subs, a local chain, and we have a deli or two in town too, that's pretty good.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Inflation happens. When I was a kid you could Whoppers for a buck on Sunday, or 59¢ tacos at Taco Bell.

Or a loaf of bread or a gallon of milk for a dollar each.

Etc.

Time Marches On. Sooner rather than later, a $10 footling will seem like a good deal.

 

[Sonikku]

Inflation happens. When I was a kid you could Whoppers for a buck on Sunday, or 59¢ tacos at Taco Bell.

Or a loaf of bread or a gallon of milk for a dollar each.

Etc.

Time Marches On. Sooner rather than later, a $10 footling will seem like a good deal.

Yes, $5 isn't worth in 2018 what it was in 2008. Hence the end to the promotion.
And yet the federal minimum wage is still $7.25 an hour, unchanged over the same time period. Figures.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I've never seen a $5 footlong to begin with. By the time you add taxes etc it was still close to $10 for a typical foot long sub.

In fact I find most fast food meals end up costing over $10 now, I remember when it was just under that. It's funny because when I'm doing groceries I try to avoid prepared meals because "they're so expensive" but they're still cheaper than a fast food meal. So I started buying more now. Like premade frozen dinners and deli meals and stuff. So instead of getting fast food when I want something quick I'll just pop one of those in the oven or microwave. Some of the deli stuff is probably decently close to something home made anyway.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t43tVQlzzAg

etc.

 

[lupi]

Remember going into one several years back and watching the guy making it measure the meat slices. My return visits exponentially decreased after that.

 

[lxskllr]

Subway's pretty meh. The value for food sold isn't bad, but they just don't taste that good. Not bad, but there's better choices. I have a couple good delis close to work, and the previously mentioned wawa are all much better. For big chains, I was fairly impressed with Jersey Mikes. Only been there once, but I really enjoyed my sub.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I don't mind Subway, would not be worth it for me to buy all the ingredients to make a sub at home as most of it would go bad unless I want to eat subs for 2 weeks straight. I find myself going there less though now that the one at Home Depot closed. I used to go WAY too often. It's one of those things where I won't go out of my way to go to, but when it was at HD I am there often and it was convenient. I heard the owner committed suicide, I was legit sad when I found that out. I don't know if the closure affected him or if he had lot of other life issues, I didn't exactly know him other than talking with him now and then when I went there. He even bought me a cookie once out of pocket, sometimes it's the simple acts like that you remember.

 

[deadlyapp]

Uh...

They used to be reasonably priced on double meat and stuff. Now sure it might not top these magical 2 foot long New York deli sandwiches for $3 or whatever bullshit people always claim, but in my experience they'd still be cheaper with paying for extra meat than most other places are for their standard subs and they'll come with more meat than those do most of the time. But with the increased prices it'd probably be about equal in price or meat you get per $.

They also have wraps now that you supposedly get double meat on (so the meat to bread ratio should be way up). But you probably would want to make sure to remind the employee that it comes with double meat standard because Subways employees tend not to be the best and some I think the manager is a stingy asshole so tells them only to put on some small amount unless the customer requests more.

Yeah, my point was that once they started reducing the meat and cheese on their sandwiches, but increasing the bread size to make it look large, I lost interest. I love sandwiches, but I'd gladly pay more for more protein vs bread. I think an appropriate amount of meat to bread ratio would be something like 3-4oz of meat per 4 inches of sub.

 

[kn51]

I miss the days of the classic cut. Man I'm old.

 

[purbeast0]

Jersey Mikes has pretty much made Subway irrelevant. Everything about it is about 100x better than Subway. I will still go to Subway if I'm extremely lazy and just want a mediocore meatball sub since it is like 1/4 mile from my house. Usually though I'll drive the extra 2 miles or so to go to Jersey Mikes though.

 

[ImpulsE69]

All chain restaurants go this way. Even Jersey Mikes (which is actually more expensive than Subway) will get there eventually, or they'll go out of business. You can't have cheap and great and survive for decades. You can manage cheap and good enough generally. I'm surprised $5 footlong lasted as long as it did considering their 12" prices have continued to increase regularly.