Subway (Notting Hill) — Restaurant in Melbourne

There was a staff member working who appeared to be a woman in her 20s–40s, likely of Southern or South Western Asian background, and spoke with a Southern or South Western Asian accent.

Here’s why I gave a one-star rating.

Hygiene awareness I seriously question whether this staff member has any fundamental sense of hygiene at all. She was wearing plastic gloves while working, but after placing my food on the grill, I saw her pick something up off the floor and throw it away—with those same gloves still on. At no point did she seem to even consider changing them. She just stood there waiting for the grill to finish.

With those same gloves, she then handled the payment terminal, and without changing them, moved on to preparing packaging materials. Watching all of this in sequence made me feel sick. I had to awkwardly point it out and ask her to please change her gloves before handling my food, since she’d just picked something up from the floor. It was incredibly uncomfortable to have to ask that.

Later, I realised that she’d already been wearing those gloves from the moment she came out from the back area to the front to serve me. Reflecting on the whole thing, I started wondering—had she been wearing the same gloves the whole time, even before I arrived? If so, was my food already being handled with dirty gloves that had touched all sorts of things? The thought was honestly horrifying.

(It also made me wonder whether this lack of glove-changing is just her personal habit, or if—like many business owners I’ve encountered in Australia—there’s pressure from management not to change gloves too often in order to cut costs, either directly or indirectly.)

This wasn’t just a case of unprofessional conduct. It made me genuinely question whether this person even has a fundamental sense of hygiene.

Work attitude, communication, and attention Even before I saw her face, I could hear what sounded like her being on a phone call. Throughout the whole interaction, she kept a white earbud in her left ear. Even though I spoke clearly and loudly enough, she didn’t seem to properly understand what I was saying, and kept asking the same question repeatedly, which gave me the impression that she was distracted and not paying full attention. It felt different from the occasional communication issues I’ve had before due to language barriers—this wasn’t about mishearing body language or tone; it genuinely felt like her mind was elsewhere. (Of course, this second point is minor compared to the...

It’s clearly not a great place to work, whether because of the pay or the stress of working there, because the turnover rate is massive.

As a result, service is generally not very experienced, meaning lunch-rushes are slow and backed-up, and the quality of service can get sloppy.

Sometimes you’ll have people working there who are great and efficient, and other times people who haven’t worked there long enough to handle the lunch rush, meaning you pay for a worse sandwich on average, as they rush to make it.

Nothing against the workers there; I doubt Subway pays well, but food there can be pricey, and you’d want to make sure you get what...

Been going here on and off for the last 4 years as I work only a few mins walk away. Has deteriorated to the point of no return. Its not like there isnt customers at this store. lunch time the line is out the door. I generally order a pretty simple sub, but when they scoff at you when you call them out for putting 5 pieces of olives on a roll you are paying $10+ for.. well thats enough for me. Constantly out of ingredients, grill not working, soft drink machine ripped out to force you to pay ridiculous prices for bottled drinks.......