The Untold Truth Of Jersey Mike's

In a world totally dominated by a few big names, sometimes it's nice to root for the underdog. These days, it seems like every street corner is littered with a McDonald's, Burger King, KFC, Subway, and all your other megacorp food chains. But that doesn't mean you have to be forced through the doors of the branch of a multibillion dollar company just to find great fast food that's adored nationwide.

Take Jersey Mike's, for example. Okay, so it's not exactly a mom-and-pop independent corner store, but compared to some of the bigger names in casual dining it might as well be a hot dog cart. This New Jersey-based chain has been making subs for decades now, but despite enjoying tremendous growth in the last few years, still remains a grounded and ultimately likable brand. From their humble beginnings to their charity work and even an unfortunate controversy, here's the untold truth of Jersey Mike's.

In 1987, Cancro decided to begin franchising Jersey Mike's. This, however, was a decision which almost destroyed the company. Cancro had put "every dime" into growing Jersey Mike's, and eventually set up about 35 stores up and down the Jersey Shore. In the early '90s, however, a recession hit the United States. Because all of the company's money had been put into growth, there was nothing left in the bank to save it from hard times. Six people in the HQ were laid off and Cancro was forced to visit each franchisee and make sure things were still running smoothly. At the time, it was also impossible to buy any new stores. "We were under," Cancro told QSR. "I didn't declare bankruptcy, but I was negative $2 million to $5 million. That's when I buttoned the chinstrap. I visited every single owner. Growth was supposed to be exponential, but it just stopped."

Cancro had to run the company without the staff he had let go, eventually having to work more than 100 hours every week. Because there was no money for TV advertising, he was forced to take to local radio to get the word out about the business, and filled the gaps with door-to-door marketing and mail campaigns. Luckily, things eventually turned around — and within three years of the recession, Cancro had managed to hire back all the staff he had fired.

One of the things which separates Cancro's business style from that of his fast food CEO colleagues is that he genuinely seems to relish getting his hands dirty. While he was providing his key lessons on managing a business to the Jersey Mike's blog, he was in the midst of touring the country, traveling from Portland to Phoenix to San Diego to visit his stores. According to Cancro himself, when he walks into a store, "I say nothing. "I walk in wearing a white oxford shirt with the sleeves rolled up and I start cleaning the grill. I get right in there with them."

He then joins the production line, helps make sandwiches and routinely asks his colleagues, many of whom are teenagers, how he's doing. Cancro claims it "levels the playing field and resonates." "When I was 14-years-old," he said, "it felt like a small family nucleus. That's what I want for our store teams today."

It's clear that Jersey Mike's is willing to try a whole range of things to get their sandwiches selling, but none of their efforts so far are likely to have been as good for the company as the time they showed up in a Jennifer Lopez video. In 2018, J-Lo released "Dinero", a collaboration with Cardi B featuring DJ Khaled. In amongst all the dance sequences and scenes depicting Lopez barbecuing steaks in lingerie (that's the music biz, for you) is a shot in which the singer sits at the bottom of a staircase eating a meal from Jersey Mike's.

The company's social media accounts were quick to point out their cameo in "Dinero," and considering it's been viewed over 90 million times (as of March 2019), it's hard to imagine they were too unhappy at having their products show up during the video. You can't buy exposure like that.

As you might expect — and hope — from a sub sandwich store, freshness is the "name of the game" at Jersey Mike's. The chain takes special pride in preparing all its vegetables by hand every day "for the highest level of freshness and flavor." According to Greg Potter, one of the company's franchisees, freshness is what makes Jersey Mike's superior to other subs. "We bake our bread fresh daily," he said on the company's blog. "We shred our lettuce and cut our onions and tomatoes daily. There's nothing leftover that you will have the next day on your sub. It's all fresh that morning. The quality of the meat is USDA grade A. We do our own in-house roast beef. It's kind of a restaurant-type sub shop."

This emphasis on freshness and quality seems to have paid off. In 2013, the chain was honored with the Restaurant Chain Marketer of the Year award for "leading promotions on the Certified Angus Beef brand" on its menus, social media, and advertising campaigns. Indeed, according to Brian Todd, President and CEO of the Food Institute, Jersey Mike's ability to play to "shifting tastes" towards fresh ingredients and authentic, local food has given the chain a marked advantage over Subway and McDonald's.

Being a store which specializes in sub sandwiches, there's quite the scope for customization at Jersey Mike's — but there's one way of making a sandwich which has become the central focus for the company's marketing. Mike's Way means making a sandwich with onions, lettuce, tomatoes, spices, and a blend of olive oil and red wine vinegar that the restaurant calls "The Juice." The main filling, however, is up to the customer — whether that's roast beef, turkey, tuna, cheese steak, or anything else. According to Matt Chmiel, the company's marketing manager, a sub made "Mike's Way" is Jersey Mike's most popular product, and is what the store has been famous for ever since its foundation.

Obviously, it's only a recommendation, and the store also offers a whole smorgasbord of different sandwiches, featuring ingredients as wide-ranging as provolone, bell peppers, prosciuttini, smoked bacon, salami, sauerkraut, Thousand Island dressing, mushrooms, blue cheese dressing and chipotle mayo. Just remember, Mike's Way probably became famous for a reason.

Jersey Mike's isn't just well-known for its subs, however — or even its success. The company also puts a lot of emphasis on its charitable side, which it describes as a "culture of giving." Since 2010, Jersey Mike's has raised over $34 million, not for "the back pats, or the tax breaks," as they say, but simply "to give," and regularly ask their customers to donate to local charities throughout the month of March.

On the last Wednesday of every March, the company also hosts a "Day of Giving," whereupon the company donates 100 percent of its revenue (usually around $5-7 million) to charity. According to Cancro, Jersey Mike's has done this since 1975, and considering 2019 saw the company generate over $6 million in sales on its Day of Giving (all of which went to charity), it's not hard to imagine the final tally of their charitable donations is astronomical. For years now, what's described as "cause-related marketing" has been a central aspect of the company's strategy for promoting growth. Evidently, it's working.

Everyone knows that hitting a ball with a bat and running around a field is hungry work (that's what baseball is, right?), so 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. As part of the team-up, the Yankees agreed to promote Jersey Mike's via in-stadium LED signs and game tickets the company can use for in-store and radio sweepstakes. The partnership probably isn't a huge surprise, considering Peter Cancro has long been a sports fan (he gave up a football scholarship to buy that first store) and that two professional athletes (former Yankees star Morgan Ensberg and former NFL player Angelo Crowell) own their own Jersey Mike's franchises.

It's not just physical sports which the company has invested in, however. In 2018, they also announced they'd be sponsoring the Summer Split of the North American League of Legends Championship Series (an e-sports league) — in the hope the chain could make their mark on a younger (and increasingly hard-to-reach) demographic.