McDonald's Who?

McDonald's, Who?

Subway Resturants, the franchised based sandwich shops, has surpassed McDonald's as the largest restaurant chain in the country. The "Healthy Choice" promoted chain surpassed the Big Mac of fast food by 148 locations. Subway opened 904 new locations last year, to McDonald's 295 opened (www.Subway.com).

The sandwich franchise began during the summer of 1965. Seventeen year old Fred DeLuca received a loan from a family friend for one thousand dollars, and opened the first Subway in Bridgeport, Connecticut. The store name was not Subway but Pete's Super Submarines named after the family friend that gave Fred DeLuca the loan (www.entrepreneur.com).

Pete's Super Submarines was changed to the current name of Subway in 1974 (www.entrepreneur.com). Fred DeLuca wanted to expand and open more locations, he had a set goal of opening 32 shops with in ten years. By 1974 DeLuca owned and operated sixteen locations around Connecticut. DeLuca was just at the halfway point of his goal of 32 shops in ten years. Time was running short with just less than two years to achieve his targeted goal. DeLuca turned to franchising as an option to increase locations (www.Subway.com).

A Friend of DeLuca was the first franchisee. Brian Dixon bought the Wallington, Connecticut location (www.Subway.com). In 2003 Subway is ranked number one in the

franchise 500, they have held this title for three years in a row. Subway has also been ranked as the number one global franchise initiated in America, they have held this title for two years (www.entrepreneur.com). Currently

Subway has a total 19807 locations in 74 countries and is the second largest fast food chain in the world. Today, Subway has grown into a $5 billion company. The first Subway store in the UK in 1996 and opened 56 stores since then. Subway aims to double this figure within the next year and within ten years plan to match the number of McDonald's in the UK, which currently has 2,000 locations. Also in the UK the first of four internet cafй's built inside of a Subway. These cafй's are extremely popular in the UK, and Subway just wanted to keep up with the trends of the UK (www.Subway.com).

The first Germany location was opened in July of 1999. It was located in the city of Berlin. Currently there are 35 locations in Germany. Subway adapted to the Germany market by offering over 200 different kinds of breads, just like the local bakeries around Germany (www.Subway.com).

The first Australia location was opened in June 1988. It was located in the city of Perth. Australia is home to over 460 Subway locations, which is the largest chains of Subway outside of North America. Australia was the home of Subways 1,000th international location. During a Simpson's episode in 1995 a Subway was shown on an episode of a family trip the Simpson's took to Australia. Having