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Comment by Mithaldu | Hacker News Reader

Imo Subway is losing because it's the world's slowest fast food. I do enjoy Subway, but (at least here in germany) you can't get it delivered, and the process of pondering and ordering and watching them slowly put it together is excruciating and pointless exercise in standing around and wasting time, especially when you've watched it 4 times already with the people in front of you.

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Subway is a subpar sub shop at best, and it no longer really has the advantage of being pretty cheap (remember $5 footlongs? Not so much anymore).

This may be a Maine thing, as I haven't noticed it as much in other states, but I would much rather go to a mom & pop gas station/general store and order an Italian than go to Subway. It's superior in every way: faster, cheaper, better ingredients, more toppings. Of course it doesn't really scale...

I would certainly rather go to a Wawa than a Subway, though regrettably the closest Wawa to me is half an hour away. Luckily there is no shortage of independent sandwich shops near me, but sometimes I really just want the Wawa experience.

I actually think Wawa quality is about on par with Subway these days. First they started using pre-sliced meats, now they bake lower quality rolls in the store (they have a chewiness to them, much like Subway rolls). The only thing that's better is their ordering process and even that bottlenecks at the register. They should add payment processing directly to the touch screen terminals.

Another consequence of people caring more about how than what. They don't want good rolls; they want fresh rolls. "Made on site!"

Yes declarative sandwich-ordering is superior to the imperative variety. It certainly seems so when someone picky (or worse, someone on the phone with someone picky) is ahead of me in line.

I don't eat much fast food but Subway is a chain that has always struck me as one where it seems as if the food should be a lot better than it is. I guess because so many independents have Italian, etc. subs that are so much better than Subway's. I'm not sure I would necessarily ascribe that superior experience to gas stations but certainly to any number of independent pizza joints and the like--even those that don't have especially good pizza.

It's a poor value proposition compared to any local sandwich shop (Ike's in NorCal, Firehouse, Potbelly, &c), because their food is lowest-common-denominator with no local ingredients, they have those obsesity causing "healthy" low-fat/high-sugar options, and they're not faster. Are they actually cheaper?

It is made of real food and pretty inoffensive, so it's not bad or anything.

That’s a completely different perspective to the German one, by the way. There just aren’t any sandwich shops in Germany (this is obviously hyperbole so don’t you dare correct me on this one) and Subway actually is pretty much unique in that regard. (I don’t think bakeries count, cause their selection sandwiches, besides being much, much smaller, is usually not their main focus and also quite different from what you get in a Subway, though that might be a valid counterpoint depending on your perspective.)

Obviously there are other fast food options with similar parts, most notably probably Döner Kebab, which is very sandwich-like (grilled meat, often pita bread, salad, cabbage, tomatoes, onions, etc., white and red sauce of some description).

I would guess it’s Subway’s main competitor in Germany. Not a chain, since Germany apparently doesn’t do fast food chains. Some cities might have a couple restaurants with the same owner and that’s about it. Now that I think about it that’s actually really weird, but probably not. There are all these chain restaurants in the US and Germany for some weird reason doesn’t really have that at all. It’s either imported (McDonald’s, Burger King, KFC, Pizza Hut) or the odd exception (Maredo, Block House, Joey’s), I guess.

It would be interesting to see whether you could build a national Döner chain in Germany.

One of the things I miss most from the semester I spent in Berlin in college is the little hole-in-the-wall doner stores on seemingly every street. Here in the States, I can find Greek gyros in places, but I really enjoy the Turkish variant better.

I'm a Swiss German who mostly stays abroad nowadays and the three things I miss most is decent sausage[1], decent bread[2] and Doner Kebab.

[1] What is everyone doing with their spare meat parts?

[2] Is bread something that you noticed in Berlin? Or is it just personnal taste? I never had anything that didn't come out of a bakery in a German speaking country that was (a) satisfying and (b) not baguette. Hmm too many negations here. Let me try again - 'The only bread I like abroad is Baguette (sometimes)'. ;-)

On the whole, the food in Berlin was consistently better than what I have found elsewhere. I was there in 2009, and so the dollar was in the tank compared to the euro, but even so, prices were also pretty good.

I do really miss the small corner bakeries and all the different varieties of brotchens. Also the coldcuts - its very difficult to find ham, for instance, that is anywhere near as good as I found in Germany; 95% of what is in U.S. supermarkets is basic boiled Virginia or Polish ham.

Coldcuts is exactly what I mean, but not just ham, also the ones made like sausages we call 'Aufschnitt' - not sure whether it's German or French in origin.

'Aufschnitt' sounds German.

Most typical to what I mean is probably Lyoner (which in English Wikipedia is translated as Bologna/Baloney, however at least the picture doesn't look like Lyoner to me) and Leberkäse. First one originated in Lyon, France, second one in Bavaria. If you get the chance, try some pan fried Leberkäse once.

[1] http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyoner

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leberk%C3%A4se

As someone who doesn't eat pork or drink beer, I almost starved in Germany. I survived on Doner and Chinese food the whole time I was there. But hey .. to each their own :D

I can see how that could be a problem, especially if you don't stay in bigger cities and if what you need is not just 'no porc' but kosher or halal.

>It would be interesting to see whether you could build a national Döner chain in Germany.

Uneducated guess: Not easy, because Döner is a quite homogeneous good in comparison to pizza or Burger (as long as you don't change the current offerings). At least that has been my experience. You can grab a Döner everywhere and it's usually good. The same can't be said about burgers (Kochlöffel ugh).

Aren't fast food places in northern Europe really expensive compared to the local kebab stands too?

> Not a chain, since Germany apparently doesn’t do fast food chains.

Most countries don't, I think it's pretty unique to America. In Asia there are many chains but there's also small family-run restaurants and local coffee shops everywhere. Was going to say something about supply chains in the Midwest, but it's probably just American highway culture and the zoning system making it too hard to run a local place…

Out here in California where there's a lot of immigrants and walkable city cores, there are very many independent Taiwanese cafes, all strangely popular enough to have eight of them in the same block.

3.70–3.80 for a Döner, that’s about on par with a Big Mac, though it will probably leave you feeling less hungry (a single Döner probably has less calories than a Big Mac and fries but more than a Big Mac).

Totally agree. I always felt that Subways offer was too low and couldn't scale well. It takes too much manpower to make a single meal and their work is hard to parallelize. When they introduced the inefficient microwave type toaster to compete Quiznos it just made matters worst.

>> Imo Subway is losing because it's the world's slowest fast food.

One great thing about Jimmy John's is you order a sub by a number, and if you don't want some topping or want an add-on, you just say so. You're not picking and choosing items in line. If there are more than 5-6 people in line at Subway I just turn around and walk back out the door, where Jimmy John's can make and serve sandwiches pretty much as fast as people can pay.

Although a three percent dip one year it's hardly endemic failure, anecdotally the quality of food I can get at Subway has been in slow decline.

It's one of my favorite places to eat, but now when I go it's white lettuce, tomatoes that are pink at best, and I just hope to cover it with enough sauce to mask everything.

I don't pretend to understand the entire dynamic of them being on every corner now, food prices, no longer having five dollar foot longs, etc. but almost across the board the food seems to be turning sub-par.

It certainly is slower than Jimmy John's. Has anyone found a faster "sub" shop than Jimmy John's?

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