We All Live In One Of Fifteen Submarines

Subway is really emphasizing new, pre-designed subs, instead of their traditional you-choose-the-toppings approach. You walk in, look at the list of "Subway Series" selections, hold up the line for ten minutes while you read through all the possibilities, then pick a number and order it. And then remember that you still have to choose a size and bread type. The point is, it's different from the way it always has been, where you select every individual thing that goes on your sub. It's the biggest change since they did away with the U-gouge bun slicing.

First up, I'm not really sure why. The ads I've seen are playing up the convenience of just giving a number and letting the sandwich artist do their thing. But I wonder if that was really a big problem for Subway. The choosing of the toppings has never been real time-consuming or mentally-taxing.

The other odd part of this is that the individual Subway restaurants don't seem too keen on the change. The first time I tried ordering numerically, the employee had to turn and look at the menu to know which sub I meant. The second time (at a different location) she rolled her eyes a little when I gave the number — and she was wearing a t-shirt that said, just order by the number. And every time I've gone with one of the designed subs, they nevertheless keep asking what I want on it, no matter how many times I assure them I just want the standard construction. Oh, and apparently, they call them the "recommended" toppings. They didn't like it so much when I called them "standard" like I was ordering a Buick Riviera.

Of course, this isn't totally new, this format of preset subs which I guess you can change if you really insist. That's what the pretenders to the sub throne Firehouse and Jersey Mike's have done. But hey, the number one in the market copying their competitors, throwing away the formula that made them successful in the first place? It has a New Coke stench to me. 

And now that I think about it, people have speculated that New Coke was a cover to switch from cane sugar to the cheaper corn syrup. And I have noticed that once commonality of the numbered subs is that the prices have crept up. So I wonder if this is a bit of corporate sleight-of-hand to hide higher prices. Unfortunately, a lot of companies think that raising the prices and moving up-market and overusing words like “premium” is an easy way to greater profits. But the fact is that it's quite difficult to convince the public that you have become a higher-price-higher-quality option, and not just the same cheap company with higher prices. I don't think the public's perception of Subway meshes with the idea of pricey designer food.