I just came across this article about the origin of these sandwich names.
I make my own, eat one almost every day during hot months, and that’s mostly what I have in them:salami, genoa, etc. , with provolone cheese and lettuce, tomato, italian marinated peppers, and oil and balsamic vinegar. On a boletas roll, which are made fresh locally.
That’s a very well researched and written article. Just read it carefully to see if the writer says that something is the true origin or one of many stories.
Is that yours?
Nope.
In 1965, Fred DeLuca borrowed $1,000 from friend Peter Buck to start “Pete’s Super Submarines” in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and in the following year they formed Doctor’s Associates Inc to oversee operations of the restaurants as the franchise expanded.
See http://www.subway.com/subwayroot/about_us/TimeLine.aspx
Your only choice is to say, yes it was named after the under ground trains system, but Pete was filling them with water and driving submarines into them ! 
Well ok so they may have decided to change transport at the same time as the they time they changed name, But the fact they started with under water boats is proof the story is not the SIMPLe story … The simple story was “it was always about underground railways!”… Clearly Doctors Associates started with under water boats and then there’s a mirky story with some gaps to mind.
I had thought the objection was that it was named after the NYC subway, specifically. I personally think it’s just a fun play on words that later got formally connected with NYC. I mean, of course the name references underground rail.
I think it’s just that the sandwiches are called “submarines”, but that’s usually shortened to just “sub”, and so some guys with a shop selling them decided to go with a shorter, catchier name that also starts with “sub”.
I have no idea what this post is supposed to mean.
That would be my assumption.
And to further explain, again, I don’t think anyone is arguing that the name is not supposed to evoke a subway as in the sense of “underground rail network.” Obviously, it is. But there’s a difference between saying that and saying that it is named after the New York City subway. My guess is what happened is similar to Chronos’s. Some people were sitting around, thinking of a catchier name for their sandwich shop. In the brainstorm, the word “Subway” came up. It’s easily brandable, memorable, and it incorporates the name of the product they’re selling “sub(marines) sandwiches.” You can also parse it as “sub” + “way,” as in “way of the sub,” and probably come up with slogans that way, if you wanted. Etc. That’s a bit different than saying it was named after the New York City subway. It’s named after subways in general, and the only reason it is so is because the name works with the product they are selling.
I’ve traveled a bit, lived in different parts of the country, born in NYC. I usually refer to a hot sandwich on italian bread as a sub, a cold sandwich on italian or other generic long, cheaper kind of bread as a hero. I’ve seen ‘Hoagies’ sold on a kaiser roll, rather than italian bread. is often on a kaiser roll, not necessarily italian bread. I’m not sure about wedge or po’boy.
And although it sounds redundant, the word sandwich is often tacked on in other parts of the country (which I think is stupid).
I’m new and found this topic a great starter for me. I am a life long, born and raised Louisiana resident. I’ve traveled quite a bit around the US and have found that the difference in the majority of the sandwiches to be the type of bread used, rather than the ‘stuffings’.
A louisiana po’ boy is made with any kind of meat and dressed (pronounced dressed) means lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, mayo, and cheese.
For the food lovers, the history of the po’ boy is interesting. A popular local theory claims that “po’ boy”, was coined in a New Orleans restaurant owned by Benny and Clovis Martin former streetcar conductors. In the 1920s, during a strike against the streetcar company, the Martin brothers served their former colleagues free sandwiches. The Martins’ restaurant workers jokingly referred to the strikers as “poor boys”, and soon the sandwiches themselves took on the name. In Louisiana dialect, this is naturally shortened to “po’ boy.”
See post #61.
Mario’s, an institution in Kansas City, has a sandwich they call a grinder that is totally unlike any I’ve seen anywhere else. They take a long, crusty sesame seed roll, cut off one end, then plunge a bread knife into it, and cut a round plug of bread out of the middle. They fill this space with meat, cheese and sauce, then plug the hole with the piece they cut off the end. Then they bake it.
When you get it, the insides are hot and gooey, but because the exterior crust is still whole, nothing squirts out the sides.
Here is a photo of one that some communist sliced in bisected diagonally because that is the sort of evil people tend to perpetrate for photographs. But in real life, nobody would eat a Mario’s grinder like that. Here’s how it looks as normally served.
I usually get the meatball one, but they also have an Italian sausage, cheese, Italian steak and occasional daily specials.
They’ve been in the same location since 1976, but shrunk in size recently. I have no idea why, as it is a unique and truly wonderful sandwich. I’m shocked that someone hasn’t bought the rights to market these things frozen, as they heat up wonderfully.
The best “sub” type sandwich in Chicago is Cap’n Nemo’s. They have unique ingredient combinations that work wonderfully well, like their Conqueror sandwich with Liverwurst, Muenster Cheese, Salami, Eggs, Sauerkraut Dressing, “Captain’s Secret Sauce”, Lettuce, Tomato and Onion.
I will agree that a “sub” defaults to one made with cold cuts or other cold meat, but we never use the other terms here in northwest Arkansas. The others either are named by their ingredients or are called hot subs. If the bread is toasted, “toasted sub” doens’t need an additional “hot.”
And I’d say “sub” is still nominally short for “submarine sandwich.” But only nominally. Most people think of the primary word as being “sub.” It’s a common phenomenon where the abbreviation takes over for the original, longer version.
Oh, man, that’s right up my alley. Gotta try it when I’m up in that neck of the woods.
the term hoagie is used in the philly, south jersey, and delaware area
In melbourne.aus, “subway” is just a meaningless name for another big, massive, everywhere American chain that calls their “rolls” “subs”. As in, “I’m going to get a turkey roll from Subway, because there isn’t a ‘milk bar’ or (Chinese/Vietnamese bakery) anymore”
The default is an 8" salad roll, (lettuce, lettuce, lettuce, tomato, cucumber, carrot, perhaps cabbage, optionally beet root, optionally salt and pepper. Originally, optionally (English) butter on the roll, but since the Vietnamese Chinese took over the independent bakeries, optionally mayo on the salad or margarine on the roll.
Optionally, white bread roll or brown. Same thing on sliced bread is a “sandwich”.
Although the default base is just “salad”, most people will choose something like “Cheese and Salad” or “Egg and” or “Ham and”. Idiosyncratic limited selection of cold cuts: now with the Chinese of Vietnamese origin, warm fried meats (chicken, pork, meatballls) are also an option.
Because of the Vietnamese/Chinese influence, you normally get offered chilli and coriander with the salad, and because of the French influence on Vietnam, the rolls are a bit sweeter and softer than they used to be, but still recognisably English. (White bread, fairly soft crust, bread a bit stiffer than an American bun) . The roll is never sliced-through.
Surprisingly good. As a teenager I would never have imagined that one day I might deliberately choose to eat anything with the word “salad” in it, but I’m a convert.