TORONTO — A recent trip to an out-of-town Subway made you realize how much better managed it is than the Subway you normally eat at four times a week, you confirmed while eating an immaculate footlong sweet onion chicken teriyaki sub.
“This Subway has a lot going for it,” you thought to yourself while noticing that all the soda fountains were operational. “The lights are bright, and the place has all the ceiling tiles. The floors aren’t sticky anywhere, not even by the trash, which means someone is regularly mopping. The tomatoes are an actual shade of red. Not a dark red, a little orangey, in fact, but you could definitely describe it as red, unlike the distinctly pink, flavorless tomatoes at my normal place. And look, you don’t need to ask for a key to use the toilet. This is a nice Subway.”
Your coworker, who you wouldn’t call a friend exactly but is someone you’re chummy enough to grab lunch with now and then, felt that this Subway was actually lacking in quality compared to his normal franchise.
“This Subway is complete trash compared to the one near my apartment,” said your coworker Devin Price. “They were out of M&M cookies and Baked Cheetos. My place always has those stocked, and the cookies taste fresh as hell. And the customer service here is bad. Not a single one of the people knew my name when I walked in! Everyone knows my name at my usual Subway. These people hardly talk, they just take your order and move you along. I’m not looking for a sandwich-making robot. When I go to a restaurant I want to feel like I’m welcome.”
A Subway employee at the location you admire so much was caught off guard by the high praise.
“I mean, I guess it’s ok here. They make us wash our hands a lot,” said sandwich artist Tony Clark. “Our manager is kind of a hard ass. She’s always saying ‘If you got time to lean, you got time to clean’ and shit like that. I guess it’s cool that the guy was so excited that he gave me a $5 tip, and that sort of makes me wish I hadn’t put a pube in his friend’s food.”
At press time, you were posting a 45-second-long video on Instagram marveling at how the hotel shower water pressure was so much better than the water pressure in your apartment.