You might remember that I used to rant about the “reviews”
of local restaurants that routinely appeared in Friday's weekend insert of local
newspaper. It did lead to meeting the
author of those pieces who turned out to be a pretty nice guy. And (with his help) I did finally realize
that “review” was not the correct word for the piece, maybe something more like:
“infopiece”; or to be more snarky, free (?) advertising. Formula was to basically talk a little
about the owner(s), sort of highlight the menu and pricing, include a picture
of something, and invariably have positive reports about the reporter’s
experience. He eventually left for new horizons, and since then the volume of “reviews” has drastically decreased.
Well, last Friday’s weekend insert contains a similar piece about
the new Firehouse Subs recently
opened in part of a carpet store on the Route 235 raceway. One thing about the previous articles that I
did appreciate was that he never wrote about a box or chain store. It was always an independent, which I
applaud. Well, I think they may have
abandoned that policy with the latest entry about Firehouse. That of course brings up the dialog of what
is a chain and what is an independent restaurant. A few thoughts: “How many stores do you have?” Firehouse boasts “over 700 locations and counting”; “are they local?” a map of the US
shows a pushpin for each one, heavily populated east of the Mississippi, but
quite a few on the other side as well; “Where
is your headquarters?” Firehouse is
located in Jacksonville, FL. Given all
that, I would think that one could make a strong case that they are indeed a
“chain” with local franchisees. Well,
then why are we now reading about what i would consider a Chain restaurant
Perhaps it has something to do with the thing that
distinguishes this particular chain from the myriad of other sandwich outlets
(Subway, Potbelly, Quizno’s, Jimmy John’s – hey! We don’t have one of those…Yet) is that
they want you to know that it was “Founded by Firemen”, which the other's can't claim. Subway: Founded by Businessmen!
And, I may have this mentioned before, I’m not sure
of the relation of firemen and food.
There used to be the folklore that they are good cooks because they have
a lot of time on their hands between fires. Even if true, I'm not sure that applies anymore in the era of volunteers. The story says our owners came from the construction business.
While I have never eaten in any of those other sandwich chains,
(well, okay I have had a tuna sub at Subway on occasion) I suppose the quality of the food
could be a discriminator. I notice in
the latest article (that started all of this) reports that they steam their meat. I guess that
might be unique.. A quote from one of the owners: “…with the steaming process it really brings out the amazing flavor of
the meat. And with fresh produce, it makes an amazing sandwich”. By the way, that word “amazing” in relation
to food is right on the cusp of being added to my list, so using it twice is a
bit much for me. I seldom find food
“amazing”. I guess you would have to try one to see if steaming meat has any effect.
So I guess the question that arises in my mind is: “should I patronize them in preference to other choices just because they tout their allegiance to firemen?”. I did do some poking around their site and didn’t see anything about direct support of fire people. They do have a community foundation, but community giving is available at all those others as well. Your money, your choice. So anyway, as I say, pick
your spot for your personal reasons, but there are plenty of other real independent sandwich outlets
around. And I guess for sandwiches, I
will back off a bit on
DFD
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