Both Burger King and Wendy's have been attempting to revamp their look and their menus in recent years, but it looks like whatever Wendy's is doing is working slightly better as the fast food company edged out Burger King to become the second-largest burger chain — and the #3 overall fast food joint — in the country. More »
When is "dinner?" Josh had a Subway coupon with the words "Dinner Time" on it, but no time restrictions in the fine print. He went to use the coupon around 1:00 PM at a local Subway franchise, and their cash register wouldn't accept it. He feels that Subway owes him a dollar, and now refuses to go back. Is he overreacting, or does Subway need to define when "dinner" starts? More »
Not in the mood for an entire $5 foot-long sub? The holiday season has brought yet another gift, in the form of a deal: Starting tomorrow and going through December, you can grab a $2 six-inch sandwich from Subway. More »
In the world of chocolate chip cookies, an eternal war rages between those who prefer their cookies light and crispy, and those who defend their right to a chewier treat. And, at least in one battle waged in the Consumer Reports tasting lab, a single crispy chocolate chip cookie won the day. More »
Aaron is trying to lose weight by cutting carbs out of his diet. When he eats at Subway, the first thing that he tried doing was ordering a 6-inch sub with double meat. Then he noticed something. It would actually be cheaper for him to order a footlong and just throw away half the bread. More »
Subway's "Eat Fresh" campaign is all very well and good, but fast food is fast food. Sure, you can order a six-inch turkey sub loaded with vegetables and no cheese or mayo with a side of apple slices. Or you can get a footlong tuna salad sub that has more fat than a Big Mac and fries. Which do most customers choose? Yet Subway's latest ad slams burger chains for the unhealthiness of their food, showing kiddie pools full of burger grease. More »
With surveys like Zagat's and Consumer Reports' putting Five Guys among the best-tasting burgers available, it's perhaps not surprising that the chain is the fastest-growing hamburger shack in the country. In fact, a new report says that new Five Guys eateries outnumbered new McDonald's by greater than 4:1 in 2010. More »
Subway is testing out a more upscale version of its traditional sandwich shop. Dubbed Subway Cafe, the new restaurants would go after customers in office buildings and similar locations. More »
Ron has a problem that truly speaks to the dilemmas of our day. He wants to get a $5 footlong at Subway, but on a 6" roll to save carbs and calories. The sandwich artists at his local Subway insist that this is not possible, and that he needs to pay more than the price of a $5 footlong because he is really ordering a six-inch sub with double meat. It's an exquisite kind of fast-food logic where you pay more and get less. More »
Subway's Jared may boast about how fit he is, but in the battle of the corporate mascots, he's now much bigger than arch-rival Ronald McDonald. Subway is now the world's largest fast-food chain, with 33,749 restaurants. McDonald's trails by over a thousand, with 32,737 restaurants worldwide. More »
Maggie stopped by Subway on Valentine's Day for a free cookie promotion. Mmm, cookie. While the promotion ostensibly was for a free cookie with any purchase, Maggie wanted to purchase a one cookie to get her free cookie. According to the Subway franchise she visited, this doesn't work. More »
We've already talked about the place in the lower 48 states farthest away from a Big Mac, but what about those cities where you couldn't swing a cat (not that we'd ever recommend swinging a cat or any other animal) without hitting a fast food joint? More »
Justin snapped this photo outside a Tacoma, Wash. Subway. The dueling signs test your loyalty between Subway and the city government. Since it's doubtful a Subway has the sole authority to tow or fine your car on a public street, I assume he can go ahead and park there for the full hour if he likes. More »
McDonald's may be the fast food chain most are associating with the recently approved kid's meal regulations in San Francisco, but when it comes to calories in meals targeted to youngsters, the Golden Arches is nowhere near the worst. More »
Sure, Lady Gaga can go out in her dress made from red meat, but that seems like a waste of good protein. And you never know what kind of diseases the meat might pick up. Meanwhile, the folks at Subway recently showed off a line of nearly ridiculous but more eco-friendly dresses on the runway in Chicago. More »
Four days after the attempted Times Square bombing, a 64-year-old Indian-born Subway manager in North Chicago walked up to a 29-year-old Pakistani-born customer and said: "I heard you guys were recruiting more terrorists in New York. Are you one of them?" More »
Josh's Subway doesn't take too kindly to those who bring their own cups to fill up at its freestanding soda fountain. It also isn't to keen on those who keep cardboard Subway cups as refillable souvenirs to be used day after day. More »
There are those who hate their jobs and those who love to hate their jobs. Chris says he is a Subway sandwich maker who falls into the latter category, putting in extra work to make your sandwich suboptimal. He eats your pain with relish. Here's what he does to your sandwich: More »
A former employee at a Subway in Nova Scotia claims that she was shown the door by her employer after she attempted to use her free daily sub to feed a pair of neighbors who had been put out of their homes by a fire. More »
It's great that everyone's concerned about keeping kids healthy and all, but Jay says the woman working at his local Subway put her foot down on his request for a meatball sandwich for his kid. He says she told him, "You can get ham or turkey but no meatball." Kids don't need meatballs! More »
Subway has officially confirmed what we reported last week based on leaked internal documents: they're gonna start tesselating their cheese on all their sandwiches starting July 1st. Hot damn, summer in the city. More »
Three years after the protests began, it seems Subway has finally listened to its customers and will start tessellating cheese on its sandwiches, according to what appears to be an internal weekly newsletter. More »
Subway has been sending legal letters to sandwich places informing them that Subway "has applied for the trademark FOOTLONG (TM) in association with sandwiches," and instructing them to stop calling their sandwiches "footlongs" or else. More »
For five years, the people at BrandZ (you know they're in branding because of the "Z") have been evaluating customer opinion and awareness of various global brands, and then putting a dollar value on that evaluation for their annual Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands report. Here are the top 10 brands on the BrandZ list. More »
Tomorrow is Sunday, which means that you can take advantage of the exciting Sunday sale at Mike's local Subway. Yes, this restaurant does participate in the $5 footlong promotion. We asked.
As reported a few weeks ago, Subway has been testing a breakfast menu at various North American markets in recent months. And it must have gone well, because in the next few weeks the sandwich chain will be rolling out breakfast menus in 25,000 locations. More »
Yesterday, we wrote about a Chicago-area Subway that was the target of lawsuits after being tied to 21 separate cases of Shigellosis, an infectious disease caused by the food-borne Shigella bacteria. Well, that number has increased, just a little bit, to 78 confirmed cases. More »
Patrons of a Chicago area subway got an extra topping with their $5 dollar footlongs — potentially lethal bacteria, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. Hospitalized patrons, who dined at the Subway from Feb. 27 to March 2, are filing lawsuits against the sub sandwich chain, which is accused of contaminating sandwiches with the fecal-borne bacteria to customers at the location in question. More »
For quite some time, Subway has been advertising their array of $5 footlong sandwiches. But Consumerist reader Josh stumbled across that rarest of fast food treats — Subway's $2273.40 sub. Unfortunately for Josh, now he can't seem to get his money back. More »
Reader Brad keeps trying to get a "specialty" sub from Subway for $5 because the ads say that all subs are included in the deal except "premium" subs. He says his friend has no trouble doing this, but for some reason Brad is cursed to leave the store with no sub. More »
It's en vogue for fast food companies to section off portions of their menus as "the healthy section," but the label doesn't convince many diners of the fact that the grub can be part of an effective weight-loss diet. More »
—>Justin sent us this gamepiece he scraped like a wet scab off the side of his moist Subway beverage cup. (I do not like gamepieces affixed to fast food drinks.) We're in awe at its nearly k?an-like phrasing. How is an instant win not an instant winner? How do you peel the gamepiece that has already been peeled? Feel free to use these in your meditations. More »
—>John visited his local Rhode Island Subway every weekday for the past two months to enjoy what he thought was a healthy lunch. That all came to end after he overheard a Subway worker say to her colleague: "I don't know how anybody could eat this stuff everyday. It's disgusting and it will make you fat." More »
—>Tim thought he was entering an innocent giveaway at his local Subway in Warrenton, Virginia earlier this month. Nope. It was just timeshare bait. We wish the Subway would have known better than to allow the dropbox in their store to begin with, but after reading Tim's story you'll know what to watch out for should you run into a similar contest. More »
Did you know that in California, if you ask the Subway sandwich mechanic (or whatever they're called) to toast your sandwich, you'll be charged a sales tax, whereas if you go untoasted you won't? Crazy! Thomas Hawk says you should always order your coffee to go at California restaurants, even if you plan on drinking it there, to avoid a similar crazy tax. [Thomas Hawk] (Thanks to Glenn!)More »
—>Consumer research company Experian Simmons (yes, owned by Experian), has released a new study of fast food industry covering the past 5 years, and it looks like we still love going to McDonald's more than any other fast food restaurant. More »
—>Eli Lansey took photos of recent Icon Parking ads on NYC subway cars and posted them on his blog. They promise customers "$10 for up to 10 hours" of parking at various lots in the city. Wow, that's a good price! On the same ad they have a help wanted section that says they're looking for employees, "no experience necessary." Ah. More »
—>Subway has launched a pilot program called SubwayNow where New York City residents (Manhattan only at the moment, it looks like) can register to place pick-up orders via text message. According to IntoMobile, after registering with your address and providing payment info, which they keep on file, you set up a list of sandwich orders that are saved as a personal menu. When you're ready to use the service, you text "menu" to the Subway shortcode, and Subway sends back your pre-set menu. Then you text back the menu item you want, and Subway responds with a pick-up time. More »
—>I'll still never order a sandwich from either establishment except under duress, but I approve of how Domino's handled Subway's cease-and-desist letter over their new campaign claiming Domino's oven-baked sandwiches beat Subway's 2-1 in a taste test paid for by Domino's: with flames. More »
—>Dale couldn't redeem his "free 6 inch sub" coupon at his local Subway. Was it because of a particularly lazy employee, poor management, or dire financial straits? Maybe it was all three, considering the string of completely unrelated excuses Dale was given over just a few minutes. More »
Subway's kids' meals came out on top. Only a third of its Fresh Fit for Kids meals, which include a mini-sub, juice box, and one of several healthful side items (apple slices, raisins, or yogurt), exceed the 430-calorie threshold. Subway is the only chain that doesn't offer soft drinks with kids' meals.So how do you improve the nutrition of your kid's meal the next time you eat at a restaurant? A spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association gave the following advice:
"Don't be too alarmed even when [studies] come out and seem hopeless," said Dawn Jackson Blatner, an American Dietetic Ass>ociation spokeswoman. "With a few swaps and switches, people really can make healthier choices at these fast-food joints, especially when the decisions are made before going in. More »
—>The Grocery Shrink Ray continues its miniature spree across the supermarket aisles of America. Here's 14 more victims that have surfaced in the past week, as spotted by our watchful bands of deputized Consumerist reader-investigators... More »
—>The New York Times had an article today about the 10 year anniversary of the unlimited MetroCard and how it has transformed way people use the subway. They even included a graph that showed how many times people are using their cards in a month. What they didn't mention is that a lot of people are buying the card and not hitting the "break even" point of 46 rides per month. Hmm. More »
THE QUOTE: "Subway restaurants spokesman Kevin Kane says food safety and customer comments are taken "very seriously" and that the company is "investigating the facts." More »
—>Reader Kristina was hungry and ready to make use of her Subway $20 gift card, however, when she tried to redeem it at the Subway store at Water and Wall St. in Manhattan, the transaction unfolded like this: More »
—>Bedbugs are usually thought of as something that only hotel guests have to worry about, but apparently New Yorkers who like to sit on benches while they wait for the subway should be concerned about the bloodsuckers as well. More »
—>According to News 10, Josh Sjowall ordered a foot-long roast beef combo at a Subway store in Tracy, California. As he picked up the sandwich he felt a foreign object with his thumb and discovered it was a rusty bolt. And oh yes, Subway is...."taking it very seriously." Details and photo, inside... More »
—>San Francisco passed a resolution last week requiring chain restaurants to display calorie information on their menus, but the industry couldn't care less. They will continue fattening us up like gingerbread cash-cows, regardless of whatever regulations pitiful municipalities hurl their way. More »
—>The New York City Board of Health will vote today on a new regulation requiring calories on menu boards in New York City. The former rule was shot down by a federal judge who ruled that the regulation's criteria for determining which restaurants would be required to post calorie information on their menus was illegal. More »
For only $12.95, you can protest Subway's cheese geometry scam in this fetching tee.A writeup on Digg says, "The Subway cheese "problem" has been bothering a good friend for quite some time, and after he saw the latest news on the Consumerist a day or so ago, he decided to make a protest t-shirt. I may have to wear one into my local subway as soon as the shirt shows up."Tongue firmly lodged in cheek, to get every last morsel of improperly laid isosceles cheese from our Subway sandwich that we deserve, we might just buy one.Scam Tee [Spreadshirt] PREVIOUSLY: Subway's Incorrect Use Of Isosceles Cheese Actually A Vast Conspiracy
Subway's penchant for not using their triangle cheese correctly is actually part of a diabolical mind-control plan to get you to pay more. Back in July, Lefthandedtoons drew a cartoon mocking how Subway has triangle cheese, but never arranges it in a rhombus on the sandwich. Instead, Subway invariably lays it in a razorback formation, which the cartoonist felt led to "unnecessary dairy overlap" and "soul-crushing disappointment." Amused, a UK subway worker printed out the cartoon at work. His boss was not amused and hung the above sign in the storage room, which reads, "Cheese triangles need to be placed [drawing of razorback formation] -> this will promote the need for customers to desire extra cheese - as it doesn't cover whole sandwich. Double cheese [picture of double razorback] = 40 p extra!"Subway: A Method to Their Cheesy Madness [Left-Handed Toons] PREVIOUSLY: Dear Subway, Please Use Your Isosceles Cheese Correctly
—> Reader Tim tried to pay for his Subway meal with a debit card today but was foiled by a technical snafu with the card reader. He didn't have cash on him, but there was an ATM machine in the store, so he withdrew the funds and paid the old-fashioned way. The trouble was, he was now stuck with a $2 ATM fee for a $12 purchase. More »
—>Wendy's has sent the CSPI a scary legal threat letter over a photoshopped sample (click image for larger version) of a possible Wendy's menu board included as an exhibit in the ongoing "Menugate" lawsuit. More »
Come on guys, you got the putting calories on the menu thing right. Now, let's try draping the calories across the sub in a geometrically satisfying pattern, the one that fulfills the design destiny intended by your sandwich scientists. Spurn not their legacy.An Open Letter To Subway [Left-Handed Toons] (Thanks to Ryan!)
We got a complaint about six months ago concerning six-foot subs that weren't six feet long. Subway's response was to change its advertising - in Arizona at least - but not address the issue that its six-foot subs were about four inches short of the advertised length.
Our favorite part is when the calipers show Subway's three-foot sub box isn't even three feet long. More »
—> While the other large fast food chains sue the City of New York to keep calorie information off their menus, Subway has gone ahead and complied with the New York City regulation. Dunkin' Donuts, meanwhile, submitted a sample menu meant to "prove" that putting calorie info on its menu just couldn't be done... and the NYC Health Department responded by having its own graphic designer redo the sign to prove that it could be done. More »
—>A reporter at the Arizona Daily Star decided to put our little Secret Menu Items post to the test by ordering the items at some of our nations finest fast food eating establishments. More »
An employee at a test store located in the East Village section of New York City said they only sold two pizzas the first day of the test in late March, but are now are up about 25 a day. The biggest problem: patrons don't know about the product despite a prominent sign on the menu board, he said.
The pizzas will start at $2.99. Meat toppings such as pepperoni or sausage will cost an extra dollar. Veggies and cheese are free. According to Brandweek, "After you eat this you won't go back to Pizza Hut," the Subway employee in New York boasted. We haven't been back to PIzza Hut since they stopped giving us free pizza for reading books. —MEGHANN MARCO More »
UPDATE: We're looking to update this list. Click here to help! Not content ordering from the menu? Need to have that extra little bit of class that comes from "knowing the chef"? Here it is, your guide to secret menu items. Sure, it's not the secret rib eye at Nobu, but it's something. Before reading this please note that this article has not been fact-checked. This report is based purely on reader suggestions. We are posting them entirely without confirmation and are not going to try to order any of this crap in order to confirm its existence. We would die of heart disease, be broke, and our ass would be the size of Texas. This is the internet, the internet is not fact-checked, and these are your secret menu items. Enjoy.
It's been too long since we reported on a severed human finger found in fast food. Such stories are just so exciting! Yes, invariably they are scams. But for a brief moment, your soul heaves in exhilaration, and you begin weaving wonderful fantasies about that poor, shriveling digit. Was it a back kitchen knife fight? Does the manager require Yakuza-like atonement from his wayward staff? More »
—>Sony might want to start rethinking their subversive ad strategy. First, they came under fire for paying street hooligans to spray paint their logos on private property. And now, in London, they are posting advertisements openly encouraging their customers to kill themselves. More »
—>Ars Technica reports on a fascinating Subway ad campaign that took place inside the popular online game Counter-Strike. Apparently the ads for a $2.49 sandwich were injected into the game world with a special bit of 'mod' software distributed by an ad agency to certain operators of the server computers on which games of Counter-Strike are hosted. The ad agency paid the server operators to run the mod to give ad impressions in game. More »
