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Why did almost all the kosher subway franchises across the country fail?
Because not enough people care about keeping kosher to support them?
Ive often wondered about this. My theory is that the Jewish market isnt big enough for a small niche establishment. Subways is limited to subs (obviously) they also have a “healthy” flair thus no cole slaw no french fries etc, their simply isnt a big enough market for this. There are very few truly niche kosher restaurants consider: Chinese stores arent truly “chinese” they usually carry sushi for example.
Just a theory.
Too many Yidden thought all Subways were kosher, so they just went to the cheaper ones.
DY, I assume (hope?) you’re kidding.
As to the question at hand, frum people aren’t fans on national restaurant chains. They are used to, and got to like, local frum-owned restaurants. Especially for meat restaurants where the reliability of the kashrus is a greater concern to the frum public. There is a perception, perhaps accurate, that kashrus can be relied upon with greater confidence when the owner is frum and doesn’t have to comply with a national chain’s internally supplied menu food products that aren’t exclusively kosher. (Even if certain menu items are, obviously, omitted by the kosher franchises.)
I tried them once in my neighborhood. The food was not that amazing and was vastly overpriced. Kosher food is by its nature, more pricey than treif food. And, there are plenty of eateries that are really good, which offer similar food at better prices.
They have done research into this and found several answers.
The food was not good quality and kind of Chinzy. The franchises were not able to give the specials like the $5 footlongs so the non-kosher customers would go in and get upset that the prices were too high and were confused why they could not order cheese on their roast beef sandwiches . The franchiese were forced to pay for ad campaigns that they could not participate in and get benefit for so they lost money on that.
Subways did alot better (and still survive) in places where there were less kosher options and did not get non-kosher customers (Like in JCC’s) in places like Cleveland
1. Why pay for a fancy goyish name when there are other restaurants that are just as good with familiar food, and cheaper. Remember you have to pay a franchise fee to be a “Subway”.
2. Its cusine is in many ways inherently treff – so the owner is paying extra for something he can’t really market. Remember most of the cuisine in a real “Subway” involves pork or mixing cheese and meat.
I actually had a craving for a subway sandwich last night, but unfortunately the franchise no longer exists. We need a young, energetic entrepreneur to revive the chain so I can have my footlong. And lose weight!
We had a Kosher Subway near us a while back and it just wasn’t that good and it wasn’t worth the price.
The kosher ingridents costed more so they could not offer the $5 footlongs, they would have lost money
Subway headquarters while initially open to the idea of Kosher franchises did not help the frnachisee’s in their concerns (Like still making them pay for the $5 footlong advertisements even though they could not offer it)
<en> 1. Why pay for a fancy goyish name when there are other restaurants that are just as good with familiar food, and cheaper. Remember you have to pay a franchise fee to be a “Subway”.
Perhaps in the more Charedi communties this was a negative, but in the more modern ones it wasnt. They may have wanted a “treif” atmosphere and familiar food to them was more american style than hemish style
Because the gimmick was good enough to get you in the door once.
Then you were like: that’s an expensive deli sandwich, and kind of cheap on the deli, and not the best deli either, and I’ll go to shnitzy now.
Having grown up in NYC in the 60s/70s, I could never seem to associate the term “subway” with food in a positive way. 🙁
I don’t even understand how the non-kosher Subway places in NYC stay in business, let alone a kosher place!
If the ingredients and labor cost more than $5, the more people buy it, the more money they lose.
GolemGorilla, the CEO of the company I used to work for liked to say, “If you’re buying watermelons for 2 dollars and selling it for 1 dollar, the answer is NOT buy a bigger cart!”
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