Subway, where "everything" does not mean everything.

The BBQ Pit
21

My nephew worked at Subway. He told me to always say what you do want not what you don’t want because it cuts down on errors. I used to say for example “everything except lettuce and pickles” but now I pick the fillings I want.

There is a similar oddity in Australia with Oporto which started off as a chicken shop at Bondi and became famous for the Bondi Burger - a grilled chicken fillet burger with chili sauce. Later for the weak they created the Norm Burger with no chili sauce. Now that the store is a national franchise chain if you order the burger that made them famous you are asked whether you want chili sauce on it. This despite the menu listing both alternatives.

22

Mr. Krebbs, are you me? Well done, sir…well, done. EVERY time…every time. I’ve just started saying, “I want every vegetable you’ve got including banana peppers and jalapenos.” Guess what…when they get to those items, they STILL ask…EVERY FUCKING TIME. What more can I do?

Hey, people…why harsh on this man’s food rant. God forbid there’s a SILLY rant about food in this forum. SooooREEEE!

It’s so much for fun to bash on actual people and horrifying events, don’t you know?

23

Here’s what I meant, but I ran out of time…

Hey, people (SicKnTwiZted and Uvula D)…why harsh on this man’s food rant? God forbid there’s a SILLY rant about food in this forum. SooooREEEE!

It’s pretty god damned refreshing, for a change, to hear a legitimate rant about food instead of a thread bashing actual people and making fun of horrifying events. Maybe that’s just me, though.

24

I’m in Australia.

25

I’ve had tomatoes that I consider subpar at Subway far too often.

(Not at the moment.)

26

Then someone would complain, “Those morons at Subway doesn’t know what ‘everything’ means. I told them I wanted ‘everything’ on my sandwich and they just kept asking me about every little item! Did they pass first grade English?”

I get/got more irritated whenever I asked (at a cafeteria back in college, not a fast food place, mind you) for a hamburger, and got handed a cheeseburger, or asked “do you want cheese on it”? Aren’t the words “hamburger” and “cheeseburger” describing two different things, or has English been messed with in this regard too when I wasn’t paying attention?

27

Not a thing, if they are homegrown! Those nasty things they “call” tomatoes that are often in the containers at Subway though, aren’t edible.

28

@featherlou – It is called upselling, different chains focus on it to different degrees. McDonald’s is infamous for keeping insanely tight control of its employees (your through-time on the drive thru is regularly timed, and if you average is too high you can lose your job–even if the reason for that is that customers take a long time to order.) The big chains always want to remind you to get a combo because that increases the chance of buying a combo.

Think about it like this, there are thousands of these stores selling probably a million or more units a day. Even if only 5% of people were enticed to buy a combo by the question, it’d be more than worth it.

@Mr. Krebb – Subway has something called “the works.” The works is lettuce, tomato, cucumber, pickle, green pepper, olive and onion. This is the “most standard” version of “everything.” A lot of Subways train to that, and there is supposed to be a sign up telling you about “the works” and also mentioning what is NOT included on it.

29

Sandwich artist?

30

I hate it when I ask for “everything” on my sandwich, and I end up with the entire universe on it. It’s really difficult to get the top piece of bread on it, what with all those galaxies in the way. And it’s really heavy too. And they always forget the Southwest Chipotle Sauce.

31

Me too, and what’s nice about Subway is that you can watch them make your sandwich and just tell them what toppings you want, one by one. This is absolutely critical in the city where I work because most Subway employees are foreign born and don’t speak English as a native language.

As far as the OP goes, do you want both spicy mustard and regular mustard on your sandwich? Do you also want barbeque sauce and mayonnaise? It seems to me that the word “everything” is inevitably ambiguous.

32

Almost 20 years ago I was out west consulting and I came across a subway. I had never been to one. I had no idea. I needed to pick up beer, so I told the guy to give me a turkey with cheese with everything, I’d be back. He did exactly as I asked. He put everything on. It was horrible. Mustard, mayo, peppers of every kind, pepperoni. Oh my god, what a bad sub.

But at least he did as I asked.

33

I order something like ‘A McChicken, just the sandwich.’

I still occasionally get asked ‘Is that a combo or just the sandwich?’ since the drive through employees are really running on auto-pilot and that’s in their script, but I’ve found mirroring their own language ‘just the sandwich’ is the best way to break through.

34

It seems to me that “everything” should be different depending on the sandwich. For instance, I would expect that oil & vinegar would go on an Italian sub, for instance, and mayo on a turkey sub, but there isn’t a sandwich in the world I would but both of those on. And I would expect, maybe, for the halepenos to be standared issue on the Italian, but not on a turkey or ham. So, right there, “everything,” in the sense of “everything you have in front of me in those little bins & squeeze bottles” is a bad descriptor.

When I go to Subway, I walk down the counter with them and point to what I want (I have the language issue at most of the ones I go to, as well). It’s easy, and I always get what I want.

At Jimmy John’s, the other one I frequent, they have different “everythings” that go on each particular sandwich, and the menu lists what it is for each one. For the Italian sub, though, they still ask if you want the hot peppers when you ask for “everything.”

35

But some people – including me – will drive off if asked about a combo, sometimes. It’s less than 5% of the time but I will do so on occasion.

One memorable time was when I tried to order just a spicy chicken sandwich at Wendy’s, and I of course was asked if I would like a combo. Then, it took them a couple times to get what I wanted on the sandwich correct, then after that they asked if that would be a combo. Buh bye!

I’m also irritated now that Steak & Shake has started their meals for 4$. Every single time I go there I get “have a great day at steak & shake would you like to try one of our combos for $4?” It’s even worse because I specifically come there for the combos, so it appears that I am giving into the upselling, which makes me want to drive off there without ordering even more.

36

Well, I’d say these “sandwich artist” are capable of graduate level quantum mechanics in comparision to a few burger joint wage slaves I’ve interacted with in the recent past.

Ordered a bacon double cheeseburger with mustard and onion only. Paid a premium, it was labeled as a bacon double cheeseburger. But NO bacon or cheese.

Happened again not much later at a different chain.

Then a third time not much later at still another chain.

The third time I had even gone inside to get it, told the order taker that my specifications of " mustard and onion only" actually meant that I DID want bacon AND cheese on my bacon and cheese burger, strangely enough. I even told her about the two previous sordid incidents. She laughed and agreed with me.

Sit down, open the wrapper…no fracking bacon or cheese!

Yeah, yeah…I suppose you could get all Clintonesque on definition and grammar…but IMHO your either being a retard or a smart ass if you think I got what I should have got based on what I ordered.

Guess I was lucky I got buns and meat!

Never order a burger with nothing on it, because theorectically speaking one supposes you might not even get a wrapper, much less the meat and buns or anything else edible.

Now, at least with the subway folks, I can certainly imagine plenyt of dumbass customers having no clue what “everything” means or implies, so the poor folks are damned if they do and damned if they don’t.

But how many times can you imagine someone ordering a bacon double cheeseburger with some limitation on the toppings and getting irate that it actually had bacon or cheese on it?

Even IFFF you can imagine such scenario, I suspect the folks that would complain about NOT getting their bacon or cheese would outnumber em at least a thousand to one.

Be careful out there!

37

I don’t consider this upselling, it’s clarifying the order. I’d bet that a LOT of people who say “I’ll have the Big Mac” actually want the combo and not just the sandwich, if the worker just rings up the sandwich you have a pissed off customer, and have to redo the order.

Now, asking if you want your combo super sized, or if you want to add an apple pie for $1, that’s upselling.

38

Carrots? I’ve never seen carrots at a Subway.

39

I worked at Subway for awhile in high school and the answer is that there is a Moron-Ray at the entrance to all Subways that completely retardifies people as they walk in. The most common exchange with customers:

<Customer stares at menu for awhile> I’ll have a . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . sub.

Me: Ok, six inch or footlong, white or wheat? (this was 1995; we only had white and wheat.)

<Customer looks at me like I just asked him to solve a calculus problem> Uhhhhh . . . footlong white.

Me: Ok, what kind of sub would you like?

<Customer begins to get annoyed with my questions> Ah, look man, I don’t know, just put a little bit of everything on it.

Me: Ok, but you have to choose a base kind of sub <I point to menu, which he began by staring at for 5 minutes>

<Customer picks a sub and reiterates that he wants everything on it>

<I go one by one through the ingredients, and he says “Not that” to 3/4ths of them>

<I finally finish making this idiot his sub and ask him if he’d like a drink>

Customer: Yeah, give me a . . . <looks at self-serve soda fountain> . . . Coke. . . . . . . . . . WAIT! . . . <looks back at self-serve soda fountain> . . . make that a Sprite.

Later. Rinse. Repeat.

40

I can’t read the damn menu at Subway. Sure, they have the choices up there, but if I can’t read the thing, how am I supposed to know what to order? I’ve had my eyes checked, so it’s not ME.

Also, they should offer provolone cheese as an alternative to that white American.