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.

The company has opened 15 Subway Cafes so far, with 10 more expected by the end of the year. The experiment began, according to Nation’s Restaurant News, when the landlord of a Subway franchisee “was looking for something more upscale and with more coffee choices in the building.”

While still in the early stages of development, the Subway Café is designed to be a cross between a sandwich concept and coffee bar and is “a little larger” than the average 1,200-square-foot Subway, said [spokesman Les Winograd].

In addition to the standard Subway breakfast and traditional menus, the café concept offers a variety of baked goods, hot and cold espresso drinks, coffee, hot and iced chai latte, hot chocolate and frozen blended beverages. Because the menu is somewhat more elaborate, operations will vary from standard Subway locations. The coffee would come from Seattle’s Best, which supplies coffee to Subway’s regular restaurants.

While traditional Subway menu items like footlong subs seem to be priced competitively, early Subway Cafes have offered fancier fare such as gelato, along with plush seating and free wi-fi.

Subway tests café format [Nation’s Restaurant News]

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