Trying to Get My Business

In the mail, I get these flyers with coupons. Ninety-five percent of the time, I wind up tossing the whole thing into the recycling bin as there's nothing in the flyers I can use. On Saturday, two came. I've been chucking them without even perusing them because there's nothing for me but, for some reason, I actually looked through both of them. There was a coupon for $7.99 hair cuts at the place I get my hair cut and there was a coupon for a free drink and chips when you bought a sandwich from a new sub place in town. It happened to be over by the JoAnn Fabrics where I was headed after getting the pumpkins. That would make it just an easy stop on the way home.

I know nothing about this chain. It appears they have been around for some time and are just making inroads into my neck of the woods. It's a small place with 5 tables and a huge TV. The menu is quite large in terms of specialty sandwiches and they will do made to order sandwiches, too.

After several minutes reading the menu, I opted for their "Hook and Ladder". It's ham and turkey with Monterey Jack cheese. It comes with mayo, tomato and onion but they did make mine without all that. "Do you want a pickle?" No thanks but they gave me a pickle anyway. The sandwich is heated so the cheese melts.

It's 8 inches long for $7.38. You all know how I feel about Subway so how did this stack up against Subway. Let's just say that I won't go there again unless I have a coupon. If I'm going to spend $10 for a sub meal, I want a footlong. They have white or wheat bread. I usually don't get my Subway sandwiches toasted I think I'd have to speak up loudly to not get a toasted sub here. I don't necessarily think toasting adds to the flavor of the sub. In the winter, a hot sandwich is nice, but I prefer mine untoasted so I taste all the ingredients.

And that's where I think this sub failed. It all tasted the same. There wasn't a difference between the ham and the turkey. Their wheat roll got soggy, especially the second half. There's not a lot to recommend me driving out of my way to go get one.

One thing they did have which I found really interesting was the Coca-Cola "Freestyle" machine. If you go to the web site and click on beverages, it pulls up a graphic of the machine. It's a bit smaller than a regular soda machine but it dispenses, they say, up to 120 different sodas. There is a graphic on the front where you select your beverage, Dr Pepper, and then the version, regular, and then, the flavor, regular. They had cherry and cherry vanilla Dr Pepper in regular and Diet. On the cup was a listing of all the flavors this machine will dispense and, if you are inclined to mix flavors, as some people are, your possibilities for beverages jumps to the hundreds. You could get water, sparkling water, ice tea in flavors and lemonade in flavors. It's quite impressive, but the storage space for all those kinds of beverages has to be huge. No Pepsi products. This is solely a Coke thing.

The bottom line, for me, is that they haven't won my business from Subway. I'm a fairly boring person when it comes to the subs I like so a place like this isn't attractive to me. Plus, in terms of what I get for my money, Subway can't be beat with a footlong for $6.00 versus an 8 inch for $7.00. I think there's room for variety so I wish them well.

Beverage:  Edinburgh's Finest tea

Deb