ToughDiamond wrote:
jamie0.0 wrote:
I think because subway struggles to maintain relevance. They do sandwiches, and it's very unlikely sandwiches will become trendy like the other fast food establishments.
That being said, in my suburb. A footlong sub without the cookie and drink cost around $13. Which I consider to be good value, it beats both mcdonalds and KFC for price. And the amount of fillings on the sandwhich are unlimited afaik.
I could do you a sandwich a lot cheaper than that. Not much choice of fillings, bread type or size, until I've made enough profit to expand. Exact price, and terms and conditions, available on application. Alternatively you could probably undercut me by making your own sandwich cheaper than what I'd charge you, depending on the prices of your local ingredients.
There are a number of reasons to not open your own Subway shop.
First of all, it is apparently one of the most expensive of franchises. The fees they charge their franchisees have been reported as being the most expensive in the fast food franchise industry. So you start out way behind.
Second, you are stuck buying your food from Subway. It doesn't matter if you can get much fresher produce locally, you must buy from Subway and pay a premium for it.
Third, you are limited to what Subway allows you to sell. If people in your region have something they especially like, you are out of luck if you have a Subway. For example, if people want a good bowl of chili and you make the best chili in the region, you still can't have it at your Subway shop because it isn't on their menu.
Fourth, they apparently really crowd Subways together in many cities. You might have a Subway shop and Subway allows someone else to open another a block or two away and reduce your customer base.
Fifth, Subway reportedly takes Subway franchises away from some franchisees and give them or sells them to other people or to other franchisees.
Sixth, you are stuck with Subway's sales which are most likely aimed at the use in big cities.
What I tell people in my very rural area is not to buy franchises. Learn the restaurant business and open your own place, source the supplies from where you can get a good price, decide your own menu based on what sells in our area, and keep your profits instead of paying them out to some corporate structure. Within two or three weeks after you open, people are generally going to know whether or not your food is good or bad. Few people are going to stop there because of the name. And if your food goes downhill, your customers are going to stop coming whether or not it is a franchise or privately owned.
There is nothing to gain from opening a franchise in my area. In my entire county, there is precisely one franchise restaurant and I have never been to it. My favorite restaurant in the county is the lunch counter at the drug store (yeah, we still have one and the food is really good).
By the way, the nearest restaurant to my office is right next door. They started out okay, but their food has gone downhill so much that of few times that I have been there in the last two years, my table was the only occupied table except for relatives of the owner eating for free. I found out a couple of weeks ago that prior to buying the restaurant (at vastly higher prices than it was worth), he had never even been in any restaurant in his entire life, much less ever eaten anything at a restaurant. No wonder he paid so much and cannot keep the quality up.
If you want to open a restaurant, you need to learn the business. Ideally, you should have a few years each as a waiter/waitress, a chef, and as a restaurant manager. If you don't do that, you are just another sheep lining up to be sheered.
Several people have told me that they want to buy the restaurant next door and not a one of them knows anything about the restaurant business. None of them know the first thing about running a restaurant. They stupidly think that if you like to eat at restaurants, you are capable of running a restaurant.
One of these idiots is a relative of mine who likes to travel all over the place. If you want to own a restaurant, you need to be there every day, pretty much from opening to closing. You don't have time to go flying all over the place. A friend of hers is getting married? Don't go, run your restaurant. Everyone else is going to a concert, run your restaurant instead. I flat told her that I would not lend her a dollar to buy or operate the restaurant - no matter what, she would be entirely on her own. I think she would be completely broke before long at all.
By the way, at one Mexican restaurant (most restaurants in my area are Mexican restaurants) in a nearby town that went bankrupt a few years ago, we often went in to eat lunch on Sundays. They had an enormous menu that shocked me by the idiocy of whoever made up that menu. One day, a sister-in-law of mine ordered an Italian food item from the menu. The waitress came back and said that they didn't have the ingredients and so my sister-in-law needed to order something else. I asked the waitress how many Italian food items they sold and she said that to the best of her knowledge, they had never sold any Italian food item.
My recommendation to idiots who stupidly want to buy or run a restaurant is to have maybe four items that sell well on the menu and a daily special or two. For each item on your menu, if you don't sell at least a few of that item every day you are open, that item should be removed from the menu.
03 May 2025, 10:47 pm
