Subway History

This article was written by Samuel Phineas Upham

In 1965, a man named Fred Deluca had a plan to earn money for his medical schooling. He asked a friend to borrow a paltry sum $1,000, then he set to work opening a sandwich shop with the money. He called it “Pete’s Super Submarines,” and the original location was in Bridgeport, Connecticut.

The franchise expanded within a year and the friends had to start a holding company to support the expansion and oversee the business. The company they formed was called Doctor’s Associate Inc., which was a reference to DeLuca’s goal to go to med school and his friend’s doctorate in physics. Within three years, “Pete’s Super Submarines” became “Subway” and the franchise had officially begun.

It took roughly ten years for Subway to arrive on the West Coast, with the first store opening in Fresno, California in 1978. The first international Subway was started in Bahrain in December of 1984. A deal with WalMart put Subways in its stores, and far surpassed McDonald’s for volume of locations.

The company has consistently ranked as one of the top franchises to work with, and it is currently one of the largest food chains in the world in terms of stores. McDonalds still beats Subway in terms of revenue, but Subway’s 33,000+ restaurants far eclipse McDonalds with roughly 32,000 stores worldwide.

Subway’s number one seller is the BMT, which stands for Brooklyn Manhattan Transit. It is made of pepperoni, salami and ham.