What You Should Know Before Eating At Jersey Mike's

Jersey Mike's has been making sandwiches for decades, but

what

do you really

know

about this fast-growing sandwich chain? From its humble beginnings to its secret menu, its extensive charity work and even an unfortunate controversy, here's the untold truth about Jersey Mike's. Jersey Mike's began in 1956, just two years after Burger King was founded and nearly a decade before Subway opened. A single store, called Mike's Subs, was a family business, created to sell a relatively new invention: the submarine sandwich. In 1971, Peter Cancro joined the Mike's Subs team at just 14 years old. "When I was 14, I showed up in the business and my voice mattered.

That was the kind of culture it was." He prospered in the side business and a few years later, in 1975, when he overheard the owners talking about selling the business, he approached his football coach and asked for a $150,000 loan to help him buy. the store. Surprisingly, his coach agreed, turning the teenager into a business owner. In an interview with QSR, Cancro was asked

what

it felt like to have his own business at such a young age. He said it was: "I guess it was a natural euphoria. But it wasn't easy. I didn't go to school for a week and a half while I was away trying to raise capital.

Everyone was wondering where I was. "I said I had ruined my life." In 1987, Cancro began franchising Jersey Mike's. It nearly destroyed the company. Cancro had invested "every penny" in growing Jersey Mike's, eventually installing about 35 stores across the Jersey Shore. When a recession hit By the early 1990s, all of the company's money had gone into growth, so there was nothing left in the bank to save it from hard times. Six people were laid off and Cancro was forced to visit every franchisee. and making sure everything ran smoothly. It was also impossible to buy new stores. Cancro told QSR: "We were low.

I didn't file bankruptcy, but I was between $2 and $5 million negative. That's when I fastened my mask. I visited each and every one of the owners. The growth was supposed to be exponential, but it just stopped. Cancro had to run the company without the staff he had laid off and eventually had to work more than 100 hours a week. Since there was no money for television advertising, he turned to local radio to spread the word and filled the voids with door-to-door and mail-in marketing campaigns. Things finally changed and three years after the recession, Cancro rehired the staff he had laid off.

Since then, Jersey Mike's has enjoyed incredible success. Today, The company generates $1 billion in annual sales, with 1,400 locations in 45 states. As of 2018, the company has won the award for Fastest Growing Franchise Concept in the United States for four consecutive years. For the next five years, Cancro hopes to double that revenue to $2 billion each year across 3,000 locations. According to Cancro, there are a few key tricks to building a successful business. Basically, it comes down to choosing the right franchisees, communicating with staff and colleagues , get involved, and, perhaps simplest of all, show up every day. Almost makes it look easy, doesn't it?

One of the things that separates Cancro's business style from that of his fellow fast-food CEOs is that he genuinely seems to enjoy getting involved. While he was providing his key lessons on running a business on Jersey Mike's blog, he was crisscrossing the country visiting his stores. According to Cancro himself, when he enters a store, "I don't say anything. I go in with a white Oxford shirt with the sleeves rolled up and I start cleaning the grill. I go in there with them." He then joins the production line, helps prepare sandwiches and routinely asks his colleagues, many of whom are teenagers, how they're doing.

He says it's a great way to level the playing field and makes the company feel like a family. In a 2018 Reddit post, a former Jersey Mike's detailed some of the restaurant's secret menu items. One of them is the 99, a Philly cheesesteak with onion, peppers, mushrooms and jalapeño, with four slices of cheese and chipotle mayonnaise sauce. Another rarer item is the Chicka-Phila-Roni: a Philly chicken with pepperoni and grilled onions, chipotle mayo, marinara and/or ranch. If you're looking for something a little lower carb, there's always the Sub in a Tub. It's essentially the inner workings of a submarine but without any of the bread.

Jersey Mike's is willing to try a wide range of things to sell their sandwiches, but none of their efforts so far have probably been as good as when they appeared in a Jennifer Lopez video. In 2018, J-Lo released "Dinero," a collaboration with Cardi B and DJ Khaled. Among all the dance sequences and scenes showing Lopez barbecuing in lingerie, there's a shot of the singer sitting on a staircase

eating

something from Jersey Mike's. The company's social media accounts were quick to point out his cameo in "Dinero," and considering it's been viewed around 100 million times, it's easy to imagine they were probably very happy to see their products in the video.

You can't buy an exhibition like that. The nature of owning a franchise business means that you will inevitably face some controversy. That's exactly what happened in August 2018, when a company employee in Marysville, Washington, was laid off on maternity leave. According to KIRO 7, the pregnant worker realized one day that she had not been assigned shifts and, after asking her boss, she received a text message informing her that she had been fired. The text read: "Anyway, it's not a good time for us to have someone going on maternity leave in several months." Under Washington state law, it is considered an unfair practice for an employer to terminate employment due to pregnancy.

After the incident received considerable media attention, the owner of that store offered to give him his job back. The worker finally refused. The director responsible for the dismissal also resigned and did not comment. Freshness is the name of the game at Jersey Mike's. The chain takes special pride in preparing all of its vegetables by hand every day. According to Greg Potter, one of the company's franchisees, freshness is what makes Jersey Mike's superior to other subs. He wrote in a post on the company's blog: "We bake our bread fresh every day. We shred our lettuce and cut our onions and tomatoes daily.

There is nothing left that you will have the next day on your sandwich. It's all fresh that morning." In 2013, the chain was awarded the Restaurant Chain Marketer of the Year award for "leading promotions of the Certified Angus Beef brand" across its menus, social media and advertising campaigns. According to Brian Todd, president and CEO of the Food Institute, Jersey Mike's ability to adapt to "changing tastes" toward fresh ingredients and authentic local food has given the chain a marked advantage over its competitors. You might be surprised to learn that Jersey Mike's food is pretty good for you, at least as far as casual dining goes.

In 2014, Grellin.org ranked the healthiest restaurant chains in the U.S., and Jersey Mike's tied for seventh place with In-N-Out Burger, b

eating

out Panda Express and El Pollo Loco. Unfortunately, it wasn't the top secondary chain on the list, and Subway came in third. But none of the usual suspects like McDonald's or Burger King make the top 10, so take it for what it's worth. Meanwhile, certain menu items at Jersey Mike's aren't healthy at all. A 2016 survey found that the restaurant's Buffalo Chicken Cheese Steak received the third-worst rating among the sandwich chain's items, earning a D minus. That chicken cheesesteak was also found to contain a staggering 1,770 calories and 79.5 grams of fat in one sandwich.

There are plenty of customization possibilities at Jersey Mike's, but one way to make a sandwich has become the central focus of the company's marketing. Mike's Way means making a sandwich with onion, lettuce, tomato, spices and a mixture of olive oil and red wine vinegar called The Juice. "Bread that loves Juice, Juice that loves bread." The main filling (roast beef, turkey, tuna, whatever) is up to the customer. According to marketing director Matt Chmiel, a "Mike's Way" manufactured sub is Jersey Mike's most popular product and is what the store has been famous for since the beginning. The shop also offers a smorgasbord of different sandwiches, with ingredients as varied as bell peppers, smoked bacon, sauerkraut, Thousand Island dressing, mushrooms and chipotle mayonnaise.

Just remember, Mike's Way probably became famous for a reason. Becoming a franchisee of a company growing as quickly as Jersey Mike's would be a dream come true for many budding entrepreneurs, but it's not a role that can be easily achieved. Each franchisee must go through a week of training in New Jersey, during which time they meet with Cancro, company president Hoyt Jones and the rest of the executive team. This training is primarily intended to acclimate new store owners to Jersey Mike's corporate culture. In exchange for their commitment to the company, franchisees are offered real estate assistance, architects, contractors and more from Jersey Mike's headquarters, essentially taking a lot of the stress off new owners.

Jones told Franchise Times: "We try to take all the effort away from the franchisee so that all they have to worry about is running the store. Learn how to do the best service, drive speed and quality of service. , talks to the client." Jersey Mike's isn't just

know

n for its sandwiches. The company also places a lot of emphasis on charitable work, which it describes as a "culture of giving." Since 2010, Jersey Mike's has raised more than $34 million simply by donating and regularly asks customers to donate to local charities throughout the month of March. On the last Wednesday of March, the company also hosts a Day of Giving, where it donates 100 percent of its revenue to charity.

According to Cancro, Jersey Mike's has been doing this since 1975, and considering that in 2018 the company generated more than $6 million in sales on its Day of Giving, all of which went to charities, it's not hard to imagine that the final tally of your charitable giving is astronomical. The company has also worked with veterans charities. In 2017, for example, Jersey Mike's provided funding and support to K9s for Warriors, a charity that provides service dogs to military veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injuries and other traumas. One veterinarian who benefited from the program was Richard Baca, who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and was assigned a service dog named Jersey.

Baca completed a three-week course with K9s for Warriors, during which he received 120 hours of instruction on reintegration into society. Speaking to Jersey Mike's, Baca explained, "I found out it was called Jersey because Jersey Mike's Subs donated the money for it. I am eternally grateful. Jersey has given me hope and a whole new perspective on life and my future." As of 2017, K9s for Warriors had helped 312 veterans find a service dog to help them cope with post-combat life. And some of his work has been made possible by Jersey Mike's. Hitting baseballs is hungry work, which is why the New York Yankees probably found themselves jumping for joy when Jersey Mike's was named the team's official sub sandwich shop in 2015.

The Yankees agreed to promote Jersey Mike's. through LED signs in the stadium and game tickets that the company can use for drawings. The partnership isn't a big surprise, considering Peter Cancro has been a longtime sports fan and two professional athletes, former Yankees star Morgan Ensberg and former NFL player Angelo Crowell, own their own franchises. by Jersey Mike. In 2018, Jersey Mike's also announced that it would sponsor the Summer Split of the North American League of Legends Championship Series, an esports league, in hopes that the chain could also make a mark on a younger demographic. . Check out one of our newest videos right here!

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