Nicole, the only reason I’m confident that AI will never take my job is ’cause I know AI can never make a sandwich as good as I can. ChatGPT? More like ChatBLT? Am I right? You are right. This is “A Hot Dog is a Sandwich”. Ketchup is a smoothie. Yeah, I put ice in my cereal. So what? That makes no sense. A hot dog is a sandwich. A hot dog is a sandwich. Welcome to our podcast, “A Hot Dog is a Sandwich”. The show we break down the world’s biggest food debates. I’m your host Josh Scherer, And I’m your host Nicole Enayati. And Nicole, today we are talking about the two biggest sub sandwich players in the entire game. No doms, just subs. I always think about that though. Jersey Mike’s slogan is “Be a sub above”, and I think them and the BDSM community should unite for some sort- They just signed Danny DeVito as their first ever celebrity spokesman. Danny DeVito’s hot. He’s hot. You put him in like a gimp suit, leather harnesses, something. There’s something there. There’s something there. But no, we are talking about Subway versus Jersey Mike’s. Subway to me right now, that’s the standard. It’s the largest restaurant empire in the history- Number one, right? No, it’s like looking back to when you see a map of Subways, looking back to see like Genghis Khan’s holdings of the Mongolian horde. It’s like, wow, he was really everywhere, huh? I feel like that’s how we’re looking at Subway now. Fair, yeah, yeah. 37,000 global locations at its peak. Incredible. 24,000 American locations at its peak. But, but, but, this is an empire in decline. Oh no. Empire in decline. Nicole, they have shuttered- Like America? I don’t, oh no, let’s bring politics into this one. I watched that movie. What’s that movie that everybody’s watching? “Leave the World Behind”? “Saltburn”. Oh, oh, I love “Saltburn”. The bathtub? I mean, my favorite, no, the bathtub scene wasn’t that dramatic. That got me, that one got me. Really, that’s what got you? That’s what got me in that movie. You are a weak man. I didn’t say got me in a bad way. But, you know that movie’s great. Not “Saltburn”, the other one I was talking about that you rudely interrupted me about. “Leave the Road Behind”, have you seen it yet? You need to watch it. No. You need to watch it. What’s it about and how does it fit into Subway versus Jersey Mike’s? I’m gonna let you find out for yourself. Subway has closed several thousand locations in the past couple years. Yes, that’s true. They are currently in their third phase of a rebrand. Nicole, they’re in Subway 1.0, then 2.0, then 3.0. And the biggest changes they’ve had to the restaurant since Quizno’s forced their hand to add toasters to the menu. I love that, I love that. I love a toasted sub from Subway. Oh, same, same, same, it was a game changer. And now Subway’s hoping to change the game because you got the young whipper snappers, Jersey Mike’s, chomping on its heels. Same store sales are so much higher than Subway. Jersey Mike’s only has about 2,400 locations, but No way, that’s it? Did you think it was bigger? Of course. I mean their ad campaigns are, make it seem like they’re everywhere and I feel like they’re in a lot of airports. They’re in a lot of airports. They’re in a lot of like commercial shopping centers. The last time we saw a sandwich expansion this big was Panera, back in the day. I was never a Panera girl. And Panera, again, Panera is so different. Subway last year did about 10 billion in sales and Jersey Mike’s, I think did about like 1.5 to two. Panera’s in that like 5 billion range. Wow. Yeah, dude, they move product man. They sure do. Pablo Escobar out there with the broccoli cheddar soup bread bowls. I can’t get, I can’t enjoy myself at a Panera bread. I, especially with the lemonade. Oh yeah, the caffeinated lemonade that was sending people to the hospital. The lemonade that kills you. That is, if I can grandstand for a little bit, people just, you gotta, You never. You gotta just learn about milligrams of caffeine because it’s a real hardcore drug that, again, can just kill you. A drug, it is a drug. Caffeine is a drug. It’s weird that you would just, say, take handle pulls of NyQuil without measuring it out. Don’t just do that with caffeine, figure it out. But the point is, Panera’s not really in the same ballpark as Jersey Mike’s. I agree. When you’re talking about sub sandwiches, couple other ones out there, Firehouse Subs. Which are great. They’ve been increasing. Jimmy John’s I think had a big initial run and now I think they’re seeing same store sales decline. Jimmy John’s is like a Boomer subs shop. Do you feel that way too? Not really. I feel like Jimmy John’s was the puriteen subs shop. So this new genre of teens, right? You just touched my arm. Well, that’s weird. The new genre of teens, where they saw their millennial, old millennial or young Gen X parents who were like drugs, rock and roll tattoos and then- I saw Kiss live. Right, and then now, or like Nine Inch Nails live, I love Nine Inch Nails. Yeah, the puriteens, they don’t think that’s cool. So they’re like a return to, they’re getting weirdly more conservative. They’re having less sex, Straight edge? Doing less drugs, more straight edge. That to me was Jimmy John’s. Jimmy John’s to me is a very plain sandwich. Really? That’s so crazy because I just think of it as like Boomer dad sandwiches. Interesting. Well, I, but I think now the puriteens, the Gen Zs are switching back to Boomer ways. About to be weird conservative flood in the teens. And I don’t understand where it’s happening. And it’s all starting with cold cuts. It’s all starting with cold cuts. No, but point is Jimmy John’s is on a very fast rise. And then Subway is really sort of scraping at the walls right now, trying to climb back into it. But now this is Subway, as I mentioned. They’ve made a lot of improvements. Supposedly. We don’t know if it’s actually gonna come through, but they have changed a lot of their meats. They have changed a lot of their breads. That’s good. And they are now introducing fresh meat slicers into every location. Insane. Just like Jersey Mike’s. It just like Jersey Mike’s. Jersey Mike’s been slicing it fresh. I believe it cost $80 million for Subway to add meat slicers to every restaurant. Are they only doing it in the US and Canada or is it like all over, like internationally they’re adding more? I’m not sure how they’re doing it. I know they have a big international push that’s planned, but they’re already, they’re in 110 countries. Point is once your armies, Nicole, once your horseback riding hordes have flooded all over the Eastern steppes. More Genghis Khan? And Genghis Khan has died. The DeLuca family, the DeLuca family. So Fred DeLuca found Subway in, I believe 1965 in Bridgeport, Connecticut. And they don’t start franchising until 1974. That’s right. I didn’t realize that Jersey Mike’s, the original Mike’s Sub Shop was founded in 1956. I didn’t know that either. Yeah, but similarly, it wasn’t until 1974 that they changed hands. But Subway was really interesting because it was owned by the DeLuca family until several months ago in 2023. No way. They signed a deal to sell it for reportedly $9.6 billion. To who? Whoa, nameless, faceless private equity firm, of course. Shut up, $9 billion? Yeah, so we’re at a very weird pivotal point in time with both of these sandwich shops. Yum. And today we’re gonna taste them. We’re gonna analyze ’em, we’re gonna dissect them. Am I gonna be able to taste the pivotal in my sandwiches? Well, that’s a great question though, right? That, that’s what I wonder about all this. Subway is the second biggest fast food advertiser in America, only behind McDonald’s. And so, Jersey Mike says Danny DeVito, and we think he should be in a leather harness in the next one. I don’t think Danny DeVito’s a leather daddy. You don’t think so? No. It could be like a service top, anyways. But…Subway. Saltburn, baby. Subway, Subway. I mean they are paying Tom Brady a ton of money. Steph Curry, Simone Biles. Simone Biles. They have all these athletes trying to push their Subway Series sandwiches. And so, I dunno, should we unwrap ’em? Should we just get into it? Yeah, we can up unwrap this. Start unwrapping ’em. I’ll talk about what we got here. So we went with a very classic, not the cold cut combo from Subway, but a cold cut combo. This is their Italian-ish sub. This called the BMT. Do you know what BMT stands for? I have it up here, it’s Genoa salami, spicy pepperoni, and black forest ham. But what does BMT stand for? I’m guessing the B is the black. Nope, already wrong. I’m guessing like- Already wrong, it makes no sense. Mm, breakfast meat trio? Okay, so, so, so, so it started apparently as Brooklyn Manhattan Transit Shut- Oh, ’cause it’s subways. Subway. Even though it started in Connecticut, but I think it’s a commuter town to New York City. I didn’t get anything special on it. But then, no, that’s great. We wanna try the sandwich for what it is. And this new bread here, the meats Nicole, are sliced fresh. But now it stands for “Biggest, Meatiest, Tastiest”. I thought you held that title. Hey-o! Is that inappropriate for me to say? No. I don’t care. I was very flattered by it. Okay, I’m just gonna dig in. I’m looking at it. It’s a pretty well constructed sandwich. You got the cucumbers on it. Subway’s thing was always “eat fresh”, right? You know, Subway, “The Fresh Maker”? No, that’s Mentos. Not Mentos. But like, this is a fun fresh sandwich. The pepperoni’s actually really yummy. That’s the first thing I taste here, pepperoni. Yo, why does this meat taste better than it normally does? Did they do a good job? The veggies are so, I’m not kidding. Wait, wait, wait, wait. The veggies are so fresh. The meat tastes really good. The bread, eh, I don’t really care about the bread. I was, I was trying to hide my hand for a second here because I ate so much Subway in high school. So did I. Because it was $5 for a foot long of sandwich. Not anymore. This was like $14 or something, Josh. They won inflation since we were in high school. We are just old now and we have to accept that. Oh, we’re old, boo. But yeah, I mean, I ate so many $5 foot longs. I got super sick of Subway and I never liked it. I mentioned a couple months ago on another podcast called “Business Wars” that I think Subway should be a free government utility. I think the government should buy it, socialize it, and make it free to all persons. We’ll get there, we’ll get there one day. Because to me, the Subway just kinda, it tastes like clean water, right? It’s like the lowest form of food. Subway does not taste like clean water. It’s no clean water in a good way. Like, you drink from a drinking fountain and you’re like, hmm, that was refreshing. But it’s not the best thing I ever had. That’s like Subway. When’s the last time you drank out of a water fountain? Every single morning. What? I sip like a hummingbird from a water fountain at the gym every single morning. While people are filling up their Stanley cups, I’m over there waiting to just get one little sip for my parched little mouth and I drink, yeah, I enjoy water fountains and that’s why I think Subway should be a public utility. But I haven’t had a sandwich in there in a long time. This meat. It’s, I just dissected the meat. It’s the pepperoni, high quality pepperoni. This is a lot better than it used to be. A lot better. We’re not out here shilling for Subway. This is genuine shock and surprise. And taste the snap of the veg. It’s pretty snappy veg. Well, that’s crazy. One of the problems with Subway, you get such a massive, massive operation. 37,000. I didn’t realize I was saying earlier that Jersey Mikes technically the shop started nine years before Subway did. But Subway starts franchising about 15 years earlier than Jersey Mikes. So that’s why they had such a huge head start. And again, at the time you talk about the freshness of these veggies, that was Subway’s whole thing, right? Yum. For the first time, there was a fast food restaurant that wasn’t just slinging pizza. It wasn’t just slinging burgers. You’d walk in, you could see the vegetables, you could see the fresh baked bread, see it all going on in front of you. You know what I mean? So they had a big 15 year advantage and they were very revolutionary. Whereas Jersey Mike’s was like, hey, we make good sandwiches. And they were slowly, slowly expanding. But now I think we’re at the point where that’s not as important to us. Especially because Subway’s quality has kind of gone down. It’s like what we see with- Well, not anymore. I mean, their quality’s pretty good. The quality of their individual parts, pretty damn delicious. I could do without the bread though. Which Subway did we get this from? Is this the subway closest to us? Yes. No way. Yeah, it is. Dude, they used to really be struggling. Yeah, I remember. There were times when you’d go into the, we’re not gonna tell you which Subway because we don’t want no one finding us, but no. They know, they know, but like- I’m saying, you walk, you walk into any restaurant, a fast food restaurant chain, and a lot of the quality is going to be based on the individual franchisee. That’s correct. Right? Yes. They say McDonald’s is never in the restaurant business. McDonald’s is in the real estate business. ’cause they were buying real estate. They were renting it out to people who would actually own operate it. That’s how all of these like fast food restaurants work. A hundred percent. Really interesting thing about Jersey Mike’s. So Jersey Mike’s does franchise and you know, their big expansion is due to franchisees. But there’s something called the Franchisee Confidence Index that is basically like, you got all of these tenants, right? Who are the people making the corporation money. Sometimes they get a little pissed off. And then that’s really bad for business. So you have to keep franchisee confidence super high. And McDonald’s had like a historically bad problem with it. Especially when they were trying to do all day breakfast. Because then you have to retrain people and you have to reissue supply lines and people aren’t sure that it’s gonna work. ‘Cause 7-11 had a really bad problem with it ’cause they were like, we want fun, inventive food items and every 7-11 owner was like, we make money off of a liquor, lottery tickets and cigarettes. That’s all we want. The food is auxiliary. Jersey Mike’s, Peter Cancro is the one who bought the original Mike’s Subs in, I believe, 1974 when he was like 18 years old. And he has been the CEO running it. He started appearing in ads lately. Seems like a good dude. Peter, I got a lot of respect for what you do. When they were doing like a sort of revamp of the brand, they paid for a $75,000 remodel for every franchisee location just from corporate money. You know, that’s incredible. And in contracts you generally say like, hey, if there are costs that corporate wants to do, you have to consume it. Right, right. No, they paid for everybody. And apparently everyone was talking about his generosity and in an interview he was like, thank you one, but two, it’s a really good business decision. Of course. He’s like, we can make it happen fast. We could increase same store sales. Yeah, think about it like you’re investing in your business and it’s just gonna go up and up and up and up and up. That’s the way to do it. And it did. That’s the way to do it. All right, let’s try the Jersey Mike’s sub. Tell ’em about this sub. Jersey Mike’s. Cold cuts. What exactly is in this? Let me tell you, It’s so much heavier. It’s so much heavier than Subway. This is the original Italian. This has provolone, ham, prosciuttini, cappacuolo, salami, and pepperoni. More meats. Also the bread looks gorgeous. Dude, dude, look at the difference. For people that cannot see this, who are listening to audio, my God, the Subway sandwich looks like David compared to the Jersey Mike’s Goliath. There is three times the meat in this Jersey Mike’s sandwich. I just choked on my own saliva because I’m so excited somebody’s to eat this. Somebody’s hungry. It’s also Mike’s way. The meat Mike’s way, you get the juice on it. They got that at Subway as well, but- No, Mike’s way is Mike’s way. The bread at Jersey Mike’s holds up so much better. It smells better. The meat is sliced thinner. Thin, paper thin. I could read the newspaper through it. Dang, oh my, this is gonna be a one horse race, isn’t it? That good. What a good, good sandwich. Delicious. Look at that, look at that, stunning. There’s oregano everywhere. Everywhere. The the vinegar-iness from the red wine vin from the Mike’s Way Juice. It’s permeating everything. But the bread is so sturdy and the way that an Italian sub bread should be. It should be. Bread, when you’re having an Italian sub sandwich, your bread needs to stand up to all of the massive amount of ingredients you’re putting on it. There is so much stuff in here and it all works. And also, one of the most impressive things for me, for any fast food restaurant is the ability to make it not taste like fast food. It’s delicious. Right, this would be like if you went to a local sub shop. Subway has been marred by the inextricable taste of Subway. Subway always tastes like Subway. Subway always tastes like Subway. Even if it’s good Subway. Taco Bell’s always gonna taste like Taco Bell. True. You’d never have a Taco Bell taco and think it’s from anywhere else. That’s true. Same as a Subway sandwich. This could be from a local deli. This pepperoni is so good. Am I just a fan of pepperoni? Maybe I am. The salami is thick. Yeah, see the salami, oh, and the pepperoni is thick, but the ham is so thin. As it should be. Look at this, look at this. And there’s so much of it. You mean to tell me that they’re slicing this on, on the little machine? Diaphanously thin ham, Nicole. Josh, I wanna- That is the most diaphanous ham I’ve ever seen. Oscar de la Renta is gonna make a new dress outta this. Real cop, real gabagool. Oh my gosh, dude, this is is fun. I like eating like this with you. Here’s a fun thing about Jersey Mike’s, right? That I think Subway has tried to compete with recently with their Subway series. So we ordered this sandwich, we just told them to put this stuff on and we’re like, yeah, put all the veggies in, get some oils and vin, all that stuff. But now they have this list of like 12 signature sandwiches where the idea is that you don’t customize it. It is what it is. The idea is that Subway has customized it for you with the help of all their celebrity influencer friends. You don’t have to think about it. You just click, click, click. Which is to say that’s how most sub sandwich shop have gone. That’s how Jersey Mike’s is, right? Right, but that was like antithetical. This is a repositioning of what people want in a sandwich. Whereas the Subway used to be fun, where it was like, hey, I get to pick every single thing. And then now people are like, just gimme a good damn sandwich. They’re trying to optimize. They don’t want, people don’t wanna hang out in a Subway that long anymore. How can this compete? How can Subway compete with Jersey Mike’s? Like, I want you to put on your business girl. You’re leaning in, you’re like, what’s, what’s her name? Sheryl Sandberg, you’re Sheryl Sandberg. You’re sitting at the Facebook executive table and they didn’t give priority parking to pregnant women. And you’re gonna tell them off about how their practices are hostile towards female employees. And you’re leaning at the table and you’re telling them how Subway can possibly compete with the greatness of Jersey Mike’s. They can’t. I can’t. But what do they do? Like, honestly, what do they do? They just have manpower. They have the iconicism of Subway. That’s what they have and that’s all that they can do. The product isn’t the same, it’s just not. It’s comparing apples to oranges. The quality of Jersey Mike’s is next level compared to- This is like McDonald’s trying to compete with Shake Shack. No. You don’t think so? I don’t agree. I don’t agree with that comparison at all. Like, McDonald’s can never have, like Shake Shack is cooking, is smashing their burgers fresh. McDonald’s can just never compete with that. They don’t have the Martin’s potato rolls. They don’t have this new school energy of expansion. McDonald’s likes Subway is so entrenched in its own ways. It’s cubic zirconia and diamonds. God dang, but, but, but. That’s the comparison I’m gonna go with. There’s a reason people buy cubic zirconia. Because it looks, and for all intents and purposes is a diamond. It’s cheaper. Is this even cheaper anymore though? The Subway even cheaper? They’re like the same price point. Dang. Which is insane to me as well. Man, I wanted to find some sort of value in Subway. And like- It’s convenient because there’s, it’s like- They’re everywhere. It’s like Starbucks. It’s like there’s one on every corner. There’s so many in the United States and around the world. It’s so funny how COVID changed everything, right? Apparently Jersey- Sure did. Jersey Mike’s was one of the first to jump on the third party delivery apps. Do you, I just realized when I was reading about this, I don’t remember what delivery apps were like before COVID. I surely use them. I remember using Postmates. I wasn’t, I like never had it on my phone. No, me neither. I never had delivery apps on my phone like by design. Because I knew if I did, I would be obsessed with it and I would really waste too much money. Same, I mean I would call local pizza shops, I’d call if I ever wanted Chinese takeout or whatever. Yeah, of course. I would do that. But I don’t even like ordering food for delivery. But looking back, like the fast food restaurants weren’t on it. No. You know? Taste the cheese. Freshly sliced provolone is, oh my God. It’s like perfectly nutty. And then try this. Okay. Wait. Cheese to cheese. The provolone from Jersey Mike’s is so good. It is like nutty and smooth and melts in your mouth. It’s also softer. The one from- It’s a little plasticy. It’s a little processy. Yeah, plasticy. Forming relationships with new suppliers, man. That’s where Jersey Mike’s gets you. Their cheese, nuts, nuts, Jersey Mike’s. The appeal of Subway. The reason to me, the reason I ate them every single day in high school is because they were there and I was out and about and it was $5. That’s right. That’s the only thing. And it was, it was perfectly satisfying. If it really sucked, I wouldn’t have gotten it. But I could put my mustard on it. I could put my chipotle southwest on it. That’s right. You put that on anything with some crunchy vegetables and some sort of meat puck. And like I’m gonna have a pretty good time. Point is it was there and available, now through, I’m so sorry. That’s a lot of salami burps coming up. Tastes like salami and coconut La Croix. That’s what I call dessert. But Subway relied on foot traffic. See 37,000 restaurants around the world. You just walk around, you see a Subway, you go, I know exactly what I’m getting. And then you do it. Jersey Mike’s strategic location placement, they’re in malls next to optometrists. Yeah. There’s a really famous story about Panera opening next to Targets. Whenever a new Target- Genius. There was like this perfect sort of synergy where people who have the class signifiers of going to a Target as opposed to something like a Walmart are also people who would want to pay $8 for a broccoli cheddar bread bowl and a lemonade that kills you. You know? Just can’t wrap my head around. I don’t know why I’m such a hater. Well, of Panera? Yeah. It’s not my kind of, I never just want like a cup of fast food soup. I never want soup, period. I live in LA. I’m, it’s my whole day. My whole day is soup. That’s true. You know, I eventize soup. Yeah, me too. I don’t take soup as is, I’m hungover, I want some pho or like I want to- Chicken noodle. Chicken noodle, I’m at a Jewish deli. Something like that, I never want casual, just like Subway just has soup. Also like bread or bread. What is it? Broccoli and cheddar? Is that what it is? Yeah. I never understood it. You know, I made my own broccoli cheddar soup once. Yeah? It was really, like recently. So did everyone else. That wasn’t like in the last 30 years of me cooking. No. Like every person has ever done that. Well, nut that’s what I’m saying. It’s a very like old school thing that I wouldn’t typically, but then one day I was like, I really wanna make like a very good play on like a broccoli cheddar soup. So it was kinda like a cream of broccoli. Like fully emulsified, strained all that. Just like cheddar crisp on top, it was really, really nice. Roasted broccoli on top. But I don’t need, but I don’t need that. You know, I don’t need, I don’t need like these creamy, hearty soups. I’m an LA girl, like, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. You’ve never just gotten a sandwich from Subway and then dunked it into the broccoli cheddar soup. They have soup at Subway? Yeah, they sure do. I never got the soups. I was always a cookie girl. I would always get the cookie, The raspberry one? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then one time I went to Subway in downtown and then I saw a bug crawling on it and I never got a cookie ever again. That’s tough, that’s tough. You know what I miss about Subway? They used to have honey oat bread and that was a single greatest- Do they not have the honey oat anymore? No, it’s regular oat now. What? They took the honey outta the oat? We used to be a country. We used to be a proper country, Nicole. Listen, listen. My friend would get Italian herbs and cheese and I would get honey oat and then we’d do a splitskis and then we would have half of the sandwich and the other half of the sandwich and you know, perfect harmony. I wanna pitch something for the podcast ’cause right now I’ve just been eating sheets of ham. You can probably hear it. I like the, I like your finger, the way you’re holding your fingers. I’ve been eating sheets of ham off the sandwich periodically over the last 20 minutes of this podcast. And it’s I think really fueling me to great things. Meggy, can we just get a ham bucket on the side for every podcast so I can eat sheets of ham? Yeah, for sure, on it. It’s like we’re at a French salon and this is our charcuterie board and we’re just bouncing off of ideas of one another. Okay, the reason we got the Italian sandwiches from both is because to me that’s where I thought Subway could compete. I wanna try their new sliced meats. You try to give them the benefit of the doubt. Because if you were to get something like a cheese steak, right, the cheese steak from Jersey Mike’s, it ain’t like a classic Philly. It ain’t a Dalessandro’s cheese steak. You know it ain’t Tony Luke’s. It certainly ain’t Woodrow’s Sandwich Shop. Definitely ain’t no Angelo’s. I know all of those. Not even a John’s Roast Pork, not a Jim’s. Anyways, if you get a cheese steak from Jersey Mike’s, it’s a pretty freaking good fast food cheese steak. I don’t get the hot sandwiches from Jersey Mike’s. You should try ’em. No. They bang. No. Nicole, they bang. Well you think the cheese steaks from Jersey Mikes doesn’t bang eat that and then have a steak and cheese from from Subway. There’s something about the hot sandwiches there that I can’t do. What do you mean? I have, there’s a block, I gotta- But would you get hot sandwiches from Subway? No. You’ve never gotten a meatball marinara with pepperoni, lettuce, tomato, mayonnaise and olives? No, I’ve never had a meatball sub from there. That is a disgusting guilty pleasure that I love. Gimme the chipotle southwest sauce. Fully dressed with the vegetables plus hot meatball marinara with the peps, with the pepperoni. Oh my gosh, no. Yeah, well that is, I guess one feature of Subway that I still enjoy is you can go absolutely goblin mode and you can be completely fine with that. That’s a very good point. Maybe that’s where their core competencies lie. You can just, well one time what? Trevor got a pickle sandwich. Yeah, just a sandwich with a bunch of pickles and they’ll do that for you. Subway, maybe. They look at you weird, but they’ll do it. Yeah, but they don’t care enough. They’re getting paid minimum wage for a franchisee that probably doesn’t have any confidence in corporate Subway. They’ll do whatever you want. Subway, Nicole, is the last lawless land of the American food West. You can walk into a Subway and you can do whatever you want and I kinda love that. Wow. Maybe they should change their slogan to “Subway, you can do whatever you want.” Yeah, Subway, utter lawlessness, become ungovernable, let chaos reign. Imagine, wait, wait, wait, this is great. What was that meme? None pizza, what is it? None pizza, left beef. Left beef. Subway is the none pizza left beef of the sandwich world. Put cookies in your sandwich. Drench it in the soup. Do you know what they should do? Do you know what they should do for April Fool’s Day? This is a free marketing tip. I eaten the ham at the salon with Josh. They gotta do like a order. Like you could order an all pickle sub. You could order cookies in your sub. You could order soup inside of your sub. They need to do that and watch how many frigging articles are gonna write about it. You’re gonna be Twitter famous, viral. Ow, sorry. Who’s coming for Jersey Mike’s right now? Who do you think? This sandwich has impressed the hell outta me. Well, I don’t really care for, I don’t really care for Quiznos. Quiznos is done, Quiznos bankruptcy. They’re still out there floundering about, but Quiznos is done. Togo’s not big enough, they’re done. The only competitor out there, Jimmy John’s, which their thing was delivery. I remember you could get a Jimmy John’s sub delivered within like 15 minutes. They were the Dominos. No way. I was at the Albuquerque Convention Center. Shout out to the Dirty ‘Querque. Can you go like this? You have one- I’m not wiping my face. You have one fleck on your lip. Can I be honest? It’s the oil and vinegar actually lubing up my lips so I can talk faster, which is great. I’m in the Dirty ‘Querque, competing just through a PR in the 35 pound indoor weight throw for UCLA. And I was hungry. I’m at the convention center, I call up a Jimmy John’s say, I’d like a sandwich. And they’re like, all right man, we’ll find you. What’s your address? I’m like, go, I’m the convention center. Like that’s a big place. And I was like, well, we’ll figure it out. Dude calls me and he is like, I’ll find you, where are you? And I’m like, I think I’m at the South end, whatever. Dude rolls up on a skateboard and like throws a sandwich to me and skates away in like 12 minutes. Wow. And I was outta convention there. How old were you? How old were you? 20, so this would’ve been a decade ago. 10 years ago? Yeah, yeah. This is the quality service that we all expect. A hundred percent, but now- I love that, I love that. That’s gone the way of the dodo. I want want more skateboard couriers. I want more skateboard couriers. I Want my Neal Stephenson “Snow Crash” ideal out there. I want my sandwich delivered on a tuk tuk. But the point is, these apps, Nicole, these faceless apps they’ve destroyed that. Destroyed. They’ve destroyed that. I hate these apps. I think Jimmy John’s got by on their skateboarding couriers. I love apps. And I think Jimmy John’s now that everything’s run through DoorDash, Postmates, Uber Eats, all that, like Jimmy John’s is just gonna have unfettered access to the entire world. Firehouse Subs is the only one that can compete. And I think they just are a worst Jersey Mike’s. You know, I went to Bay Cities the other day, which is a famed Santa Monica sub shop. And let tell you, this bread isn’t exactly the same, It’s very close. But it’s very close. And that’s a big deal, Man. They’re doing good work. I love it, I feel like we are watching that friend that you always thought was gonna succeed in life, but then things didn’t quite go their way and now they’re on their second act, with Subway, they’re like, God, I hope they get their life together. Like they want it to be like, like gimme an example of like their job. Like they really wanted to be like the world’s greatest I don’t know, like jazz dancer. No, no, no, not that, not that, the opposite. The opposite, the opposite. The one who wanted to be like a CEO. And then they got outta college and they started working in like finance. And they’re like, I manage $200 million portfolio for the JP, me and whatever. And I have no idea what they’re saying. Yeah, yeah. I never do. I never do. And then three years later they’re like, Hey man, I’m starting my own company. Like, dude told you man, John was gonna make it. And then like you see three years later and they’re like starting a GoFundMe and you’re like, oh shoot, what happened? Oh man. You know what I mean? But now that’s their second act. That’s what Subway’s doing. They’re trying to get back on their feet, winning enterprise. They’ve sold off to a private equity firm who’s gonna try and turn it all around. But right now there’s such a massive gap in between the Subway and the Jersey Mike’s that I can’t imagine them ever overcoming it. I’m rooting for the Jersey Mike’s of the world. Bet on the winning horse. Jersey Mike’s, unequivocal winner, man. Danny DeVito, come on the show. Buy a harness. Yeah, what she said. That was “New Year, new me” in Farsi. And if you want to learn a new language for an upcoming trip to connect with family or friends, or you just want a new skill, we’ve got the solution for you. See, I can do it too. Good job. Rosetta Stone- Gracias Nicole. Rosetta Stone is here to help. Rosetta Stone is the most trusted language learning program available on our desktop or as an app and truly immerses you in the language you want to learn. 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For a very limited time, our listeners can get Rosetta Stone’s lifetime membership for 50% off. That’s 50% off unlimited access to 25 language courses for the rest of your life. Redeem your 50% off at rosettastone.com/hotdog today. This episode is brought to you by Better Help. What are some things you wanna keep the same about yourself or your life in 2024? Where are you already crushing it? Dude, I’m already freaking crushing 2024 so far. 2023 got nothing on this year. Around New Year’s, usually we get obsessed with how to change ourselves instead of just expanding on what we’re already doing right. Maybe you finally organize one part of your space and you wanna tackle another. Or maybe you’re taking your supplements every morning and now you wanna actually eat breakfast too. Therapy helps you find your strength so you can ditch the extreme resolutions and make changes that really stick. 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So if you want the best chance at the best seats or the limited VIP packages, including meet and greets with Rhett and Link or some of your favorite members of the Mythical crew like moi, you might still have time to join depending on when you’re listening to this. General sale begins on Friday at 10:00 AM local time. Visit goodmythicaltour.com for tickets and more information. Alright Nicole, we’ve heard what you and I have to say. Now it’s time to find out what other wacky ideas are rattling out there in the universe. It’s time for a segment we call- “Opinions are like Casseroles”. But before we get to that, we have everybody’s favorite segment. That’s right Nicole, we’re doing another stunning episode of “Review a Review”. That’s right, we review one of your Apple podcast reviews of us. We got five stars from thatbananabread titled “funny”. They are super funny and they make my day every day smiley emoji. Aw. I mean that’s five stars. That’s a five star, that’s amazing. Five stars baby. We like those ones. We like the long rambling ones that get weird. So give us five stars in our complimentary. We don’t like the mean ones. Don’t leave the mean ones. Have you heard of that? I got some banana bread today, dude. Dude, I got some banana bread today. Yeah I feel like that was a deep COVID meme. I think that’s the banana bread. That’s the banana bread they’re talking about. Well you learn something new every day. That’s right. Hi Nicole and Josh. Hi. I had a question about something that’s kind of controversial in my house. This gonna sound kind of weird, but rice pudding and I wanna know if rice pudding is better hot or cold. Oh, fascinating. I personally prefer my rice pudding cold. Kind of like the Indian style kheer, which is one of my favorite desserts. But some other people in my family would prefer it warm. And I wanted to know what you think. Love the podcast. Bye. I’m laughing because kheer means something else in Farsi. Does it mean fart? No. Does it mean fart? No, that’s goos, gaz, goose, guzu, that’s fart. Just guz. I’m learning. Kheer means- Yeah. That’s a good, no I feel like kheer not as good a word for it. It’s too, kheer’s too sharp of a word. So when she said like a hot kheer, cold kheer, I started laughing. Rice pudding. I used to love rice pudding. I used to be a big fan of it. The cozy, the cozy- Kozy Shack, European style rice pudding. That was the yellower one, right? I loved it and I would always have it cold, but like sometimes I would go out and like have kheer and then, sorry, I keep laughing. I hate you right now. Like at an Indian restaurant and like it was warm and it was delicious. Yeah, this, I don’t think there’s any good rhyme or reason for either of these. I think this is pure personal preference. And I think there are equal amounts of good hot rice puddings as are cold rice puddings. Personally, I agree with you. If I’m eating pudding, I want it like ice cold. I want be refreshing. Kinda like that. But you look at like arroz con leche in Mexico generally served hot and it’s not quite a pudding pudding ’cause I don’t believe there’s dairy in it typically. Really? No, it is. Leche is dairy, course there is, what am I talking about? But there’s not like a thickener, like the thickening comes from the rice. I see. Most arroz con leche I’ve had is like a little bit thinner than, you know. It depends on who’s making it. Sure, sure, sure. But typically eat warm. I would also prefer it cold. The Vietnamese, I’d call it a pudding, but che, it is either served hot or cold and you go to a restaurant and they’ll ask you, do you want it hot or cold? Nice. We had bubur cha. Bubur cha, yeah, the Malaysian dessert. Malaysian dessert, it was sago pearls and coconut milk. You could have it hot or cold. Very puddingy. It’s, this is pure personal preference, which is great. Do you like raisins in your rice pudding? If it’s like meant to have raisins, yeah. If you know what I mean. Sometimes I like, like sultanas. I love a good sultana, it is a golden raisin, yeah? Yeah. Yeah, I love that. I’m just a huge rice pudding fan. I’m a huge porridge fan in general. Do you like tapioca pudding? I love all forms of pudding. And I think they all have equal merit. I used to love tapioca pudding when I was a kid. I love, oh, just egg custards. But I think this is pure personal preference. I just like custardy foods. Yeah, same, same. Enjoy it. Let your partners enjoy. You can give them good natured ribbing about it, you know. But really that’s, it’s pure personal preference. And there’s no good case for- What’s a good, what did you say? A good natured ribbing? You’ve never heard of a good natured ribbing? Like to rib somebody is like to give them, to talk guff, to talk smack. Oh, okay. You know, good natured ribbing. It does not, it’s not sensual. Hi Josh, hi Nicole. Hi potential guest as well. Ah, my name is Rich. I’m from good old Landrum, South Carolina. Go Cardinals. I’m not a team player. Actually I am on the marching band. Go Cardinal pride. Who are the Cardinals? But anyway, my opinion casserole is that sesame seeds are one of the best snacks. Oh. And you’re probably wondering like, with anything else? Nope. Oh, fun. Just by themselves. I’m literally eating a Burger King burger as we speak. And I spend like 15 minutes just picking out the seeds and eating them one by one. And they’re so good. You should give it a try, legit. I may die, that a sacrifice then will and make love the pod. Love you guys. Muah, a revoir. Aw, I grabbed the kiss. South is in the house. And who the hell are the Cardinals? University of South Carolina’s the Gamecocks. Clemson’s the other big university there. They’re the Tigers. He’s on the marching band. I know, but who is it? South Carolina State? Like who’s? I don’t know. Don’t ask me- Can you look up South Carolina Cardinals, somewhere out there? My mom has always been a sesame seed girly. She, when we would go out to sushi, she would, you know, pour sesame seeds on. Are you even paying attention to me? No, I’m trying to figure out where the Cardinals are in South Carolina Basket. There’s a USA, but what is that? Okay, your mom, sesame seed girly, I’m sorry. You have my attention. So you know how like they have like little like, not plates, but like ramekins of sesame seeds. She’s like, can I have extra sesame seeds? And then she would do this thing where she would put her tongue on it and then she’d go like this. And then I would do it and I’d go, eh. So it’s like a cute nostalgic thing. And I love sesame seeds and I still sometimes do that when I go out, I go. Yeah. I love that. If, I agree, if I have the extra sesame seeds in the little tiny, like four ounce deli cup, yeah. I’ll just snack on ’em. But why do I not just sit down to watch TV and just like dip my tongue into sesame seeds? I don’t know. I also like dipping my tongue in sprinkles. Yeah, very similar vibes. Why don’t we eat sprinkles plain? Because it’s really sugary. Sure, but we eat a lot of sugary things plain. Yeah, I don’t know. I just don’t like use, sprinkles aren’t a snack. The sesame seed question begets the notion of how small is too small for a seed to be a snack. Because sunflower seeds, people snack on ’em all the time. I love sunflower seeds. Mini chocolate chips? I do that. Okay, poppy seeds? Poppy seeds, now that’s too small. Sesame seeds, bigger than a poppy seed. And that’s better. Poppy seeds also to me don’t have a good flavor, sesame seeds do. Chia seeds. Chia seeds will evacuate your bowels. What? I love chia seeds. You didn’t hear about this thing on TikTok called the internal shower. Yes. Is that just detox water with chia seeds? Yeah. It was literally just eat too many chia seeds. I’ve been doing that for years. Anyways, snacking on sesame seeds. Trend setter. I love that this person just gave us permission to do that. You know? We’ve always had permission, but the doors were opened due to this listener and calling. Correct, he gave us the gentle nudge to get out there and finally do it. Free will baby, you got it And even, hear me out. This is a little crazy, but if I were to dip my little finger in like a teriyaki sauce or an eel sauce, something like that. Wet it, dip that into the sesame seed, suck it off. I like- I can do that for hours. See, no, there’s something about lifting the cup up and just stamping your tongue on it that I really like. I don’t know. I’m gonna wanna wet finger it. I’m a tongue stamper. I’m a wet finger. She’s a tongue stamper still. We’ll figure how to see each other eye to eye. Let’s call the whole thing off. That’s fascinating, but great job Rich. Man, South Carolina’s still innovating. Hey Josh, hey Nicole. Hey girl. Okay, so my question for you guys is, how many times can you reheat a food item? Let’s say pizza for example. Oh, my mom is convinced that you can only reheat it once. I think that you can put the pizza in the refrigerator more than once and reheat it multiple times. What’s your opinion on it? How many times is it acceptable to reheat a food item before it goes bad? Thanks. So are we talking about like, I have three slices of pizza. I reheat all of them. I only eat one slice. The other two are going back in the fridge? I believe that to be the case. I do it again. I eat one slice of pizza, one. It’s like a weird SAT logic question. No, you cannot do it. Well you can only, you’re saying you can only reheat it once. You should only reheat it once. There’s probably instances where you’re not gonna, you can reheat it twice. But that is, that’s the limit. What are you worried about? Are you talking loss in quality? ’cause pizza you’ll get loss in quality pretty fast. No, I think it’s like a, my phone fell outta my, What the heck dude? My phone fell out my- Where are you stashing your phone? Under my thigh. You’re putting it right in the taint? Yeah. God, keep it like you’re incubating a penguin egg. Yeah. What was I saying? Oh yeah, I, no, it’s not a quality thing. I feel like it’s like a microwave thing. What do you mean? Like you wanna avoid absorbing the microwaves because it’s causing infertility or brain cancer or whatever they said it was? Yeah. I don’t believe there’s validity to that. I don’t care. There is a real safety issue at play. But again, I, when it comes to food safety, I think there’s a lot I eat from a lot of street vendors. You know that that salsa sit in a room temp outside for about nine hours. And I’m perfectly fine with that despite the fact that you would have experts say that it’s in the quote danger zone of, you know what I mean? And so I’m perfectly fine with that. But what happens when you reheat food and then you bring it back down to temp, put it in the fridge. There’s a range of temperatures that you never want food to be at, in theory. Which is, I don’t know, it’s like above 40 degrees. Between 40 and like 90 or something, I don’t know. I think it’s 36 degrees or something. It’s something like that. But basically like food at room temperature is when bacteria, bacteria doesn’t like cold and bacteria doesn’t like hot. So when- But it loves the middle zone. So if you’re imagining you get a hot pizza that you’re putting into a fridge, then you’re watching that bacteria stay in that middle ground zone between the time that it’s hot and it’s cold. You know, but then you’re reheat it, it’s back to hot. You’re putting that back in the fridge. You’re sort of tripling your exposure rate to that bacteria. It’s a bacteria thing more than like a microwave thing I guess. But, and then if you’re reheating it as far as quality goes, you’re dehydrating it more and more ’cause that’s the essence of heat. Whatever, when you’re hungry and you want leftovers, you don’t really, quality isn’t the main, leftovers, you’re not eating for quality. You’re eating for sustenance. I do, I’m a person who does dangerous things, I don’t- Okay. I’m your dangerous maverick. Someone’s middle name is Evel Knievel over here. No, but I mean, when it comes to food, it’s like go at your own risk. You have to be, there’s some people who are like, I’ll never eat at another person’s house ’cause I don’t know what they’re doing. I’ll eat at anybody’s house. I’ll eat a stranger on the food, offers me a half eaten hotdog. If it’s gonna be a good hotdog, I’m gonna eat it. Because that’s my relationship with food. That’s my relationship with trust and risk. Sure, I don’t think I’d eat someone’s half eaten hot dog on the street. Yeah, I mean that’s a bit of an extreme example. I did, yeah, this is a bad idea. I was walking into a bar and there was a random dude coming outta the bar and he was holding his drink and the bouncer’s like, dude, you can’t just take that on the street. And he goes, all right. And just hands it to me. And he goes, drink it. And I go, okay. And I drank it. It’s not good. It’s not a good idea. And I asked the bouncer, I was like, Hey, that guy probably wouldn’t have drugged that drink? And the bouncer’s like, nah, he is a regular. Even if he did, we’d know who he is. Okay. And so I’m like, great. Point is individual risk assessment. What a life. Some people aren’t great at it. I take risks, but like other kinds of risks. Not drinking from stranger’s glasses. I thrive, I am living my best life. I did that one time and I got mono. Ugh, really bad mono, I had to be hospitalized. I’m not locked in here with them. They’re locked in here with me. I am the chaos agent. So if there’s a pizza… That’s the very high assumption of yourself. What? Like you’re responsible for chaos? No, I mean like, I just, you know what I mean? I’m the chaos guy. Sometimes I don’t operate within same bounds Okay The Joker. That’s why we’re talking about food safety. Some people get mad at me, but I’m just like, I’ve eaten chicken sashimi from restaurants. That’s cool. And it just doesn’t taste very good. So when it comes to reheating pizza, you are increasing the amount of risk. But also I have woken up, found a pizza that’s been laying out at room temp for 24 hours and gone. I want it and I’ve eaten it and I’m fine. I’m still here. I also have never had any foodborne diseases or illness despite the fact that I am at increased exposure to it from my lifestyle. You’ve never had, you’ve never thrown up from food. I’ve thrown up from food, but I’ve never had like a, if you’re worried about just throwing up from food, God, you can throw up from a lot of things. I, yeah, I don’t have like a phobia of throwing up. I just don’t like throwing up. The fear to me with food safety isn’t like, ooh, I got a little tummy hurt. Surely you want to avoid that. It’s not the most pleasant thing. But the fear is you’re getting something like listeria salmonella, campylobacter, norovirus and your hospitalized. That’s scary. At risk of death. You know what I mean? I’ve never had anything close to that. Well you’ve had food poisoning. Yeah, yeah, god, I eat oysters from shopping carts. You know, I’m totally fine with that. You know, that’s the risk I run. And I’ve gotten in a lot of joy about, I’ve gotten a lot of joy through food that more than makes up for the amount that I get that’s get tummy gurgles the next day. That’s beautiful. That’s my closing statements on food safety. And if you wanna be featured on “Opinions are Like Casseroles”, give us a ring and leave a quick message at DOG-POD1. Anything can poison you. Remember that, was it the Advil or Tylenol bottles back in the eighties? Do you want me to read your part too? Yeah, read my part. Okay, and on that note, thank you for listening to “A Hot Dog is a Sandwich”. We got new audio only episodes every Wednesday and a video version right here on YouTube every Sunday. He was deliberately poisoning Tylenol. Like, you know, the world is almost random. For more “Mythical Kitchen”. Check out our other videos. We launch new episodes every week. We’ll see you next time. And this was about like population scale stuff, right? So when they’re like, hey, cook your burgers to 160, it’s so an entire population doesn’t get sick. But on the actual individual level, I mean, if you’re increasing your chances from 0.001% to 0.002%, that isn’t nearly as meaningful. When you extrapolate that over the course of millions of people, then yeah, we’re talking strains in the healthcare system. But eh, Nicole’s lost interest. We’ll see ya.