Subway — Restaurant in Ottawa

So, I needed to pick up dry-cleaning and a 20kg bag of salt at Home Hardware required to dislodge a massive glacier that formed in front of my house thanks to a recent freeze/thaw cycle in our region. Guess what is between the dry-cleaners and Home Hardware: A Pet Food Store and A Subway.

I walk into Subway. Its bright and clean. An older lady greets me with the usual 'What can I get you'. I decide on a Subway Club.

THE BREAD 'Okay what kind of bread?' In my head, I’m like oh ya they have like 8 kinds of bread now. So, I review the sign with all the bread and say flat bread, and by the time my eyes make their way back to the sandwich station my sub is half assembled? It happened so fast? Did she have the flat bread in her pocket? Maybe I look like a flat bread guy and she had it ready? Who knows? This no-nonsense approach to sandwich assembly would be the theme of the moment.

THE CHEESE She asks about cheese, and on this day I choose Swiss. No idea why, I just blurted out Swiss. Then she asks 'More?' Confused by this, I reply with an awkward 'Sure?' and look back at the cheese. Then my brain says 'wait what?' and I look up to find the lady is already toasting my sub, and doing the thing where they pretend to be busy for the 15 seconds your sub is in the oven. I am pretty sure she did not say ' Would you like your sub toasted?' No matter, this lady obvious meant business. Which leads us to the most important and interesting part of the review.

THE VEGGIES Some background is necessary. I am somewhat shy in public settings and I’m a low-talker. So getting through any public encounter with minimal stress means using the fewest words possible.

So when asked 'What vegetables would you like today?' I have used the same answer for 20 years. 'Everything'. And so, it begins. This how almost every Subway experience proceeds from this Juncture:

Subway artist - Adds lettuce, tomatoes, other veggies. 'Would you like olives?'

Me - 'Yes. Everything please.'

Subway artist - Adds olives, more veggies. 'Would you like Jalapeños?'

Me - 'Ummm Yes. I am pretty sure I said Everything like twice now.'

Subway artist - Adds Jalapeños, and then, without fail, every single time, for the last 20 years, .... 'Would you like Hot Peppers?'

Me - ' OKAY listen, I am pretty sure if you go back into that little room and review the security tapes I very clearly stated E v e r y t h i n g not once not twice but thrice, so yes everything includes Hot Peppers!'

Subway artist - Sheepishly adds hot peppers asks 'What sauce?' The Sub is assembled I pay and we part ways.

EXCEPT TODAY WAS DIFFERENT My sub arrived hot out of the oven. My lovely older Sandwich artist asks 'What vegetables would you like today?' I say 'Everything’. And then it started happening, she adds lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, black olives, green olives, more veggies, and without hesitation Jalapeños...

I have to pause the review right here. On a few rare occasions my Subway sandwich assembly has made it this far with no follow up questions. But here we are, moment of truth, I was sweating, could this be the day?

The lady starts reaching for the Hot Peppers, but does it a little slower, you know, in a deliberate non-verbal manner that says if you want to say something this is your chance. I remain steadfast as her hand reaches the peppers, she sorts out a few good ones, taking her time. Then she starts to bring the Hot Peppers back to my sandwich, slowly like before, and then, rather anticlimactic she drops the Hot Peppers on the sandwich and asks me about sauces.

At this point I was speechless, I don't know if Feb 24, 2017 will be remembered by history for any significance. But this, what happened at the Eagleson Kanata Subway, should never be forgotten. Thanks Eagleson Kanata Subway for finally delivering me the Subway experience I always dreamed was possible.

Let me assemble you 4 glorious stars.

If you are for some reason still reading this review and are wondering about my Subway sandwich, it was pretty good although in hindsight I wish it didn’t have...

EDIT: The original rating for this review was 2-stars. I just finished eating my sub, and although I had asked for it to be toasted, it was not, unfortunately.

Growing up, this Subway location was a staple in my pre-hockey-game ritual. While it appears several employers have moved on since then (and maybe management as well? I cant tell…), I still enjoy a good sub from this location.

Unfortunately, they currently seem to be quite understaffed and unable to serve the after-work influx of both in-store and in-app orders. The two front-of-store staff making sandwiches were nice enough and worked as fast as I’ve seen Subway Sandwich Artists work, but it looked like there was at least a 5-6-sub backlog from app orders and ~4 of us in line at all times. It was slow, especially in contrast to a particular Tex-Mex location down the street that I had just visited, which staffed some 7-8 front-staff to help customers.

One of the staff even asked me to hand them two bottles of Pepsi from the cooler for another customer’s order, which I kindly did… (Does this mean I bypass a job interview? 🤔) however, it was rather concerning that she didn’t sanitize or wipe the bottles before packing them into the order. While I had personally sanitized my hands in my car, I expected a greater abundance of caution, given COVID.

The staff were not changing gloves between handling orders. I’m pointing this out because I’ve noticed it as a common practice at a variety of alternative, competing chains in the area, and because Subway Corporate seems to have introduced a variety of touch-interfaces to things like the oven, which means that different people are touching the same part of the screen to use the oven.

Tasty subs as always, but my low review is in light of subpar hygiene practices and a long wait time. Crucially, these have not been issues at alternative, competing chains in the area.

I’m sure I’ll be back to this location in the near future, since I enjoy Subway. I’ll gladly report on relevant updates.

In case anyone read this far, I’d also note that I found it odd the cashier didn’t ask if I wanted a receipt, or offer me a receipt… I’m ok with not having one, so I left with no issue, but I expected an offer as a matter of course anyway. This detail didn’t really fit into the rest of the review, so I decided to leave it until the end… yup. Thanks for...

Worst place to ever get snacks!

I walked in while another customer had complained about his bread not toasted long enough. The artist had to increase the oven time and toasted it again. Got to my turn and my bread was toasted to almost becoming crunchy! I told the artist the bread was too crusty apparently because of the time she adjusted for the last customer.

She looked apologetic knowing what the problem was but a lady stormed from the back (most likely the supervisor or the owner) and asked what the problem was, I explained the crust was too dry. I was dumbfounded with her next steps. She ripped part of the crunchy side and side it wasn’t that bad! I gave her a look like seriously! Next she started ripping the whole crunchy part like she was really angry with the bread. Almost ripped the whole bread apart. Lol, then she said. It’s not crunchy anymore, so you can have it (with attitude). Again, the look on my face was shock! All I could say was, are you for real! She replied, if you didn’t stay on your phone this wouldn’t have happened! I almost lost it! What is the connection between me being on call and my bread over toasted!

Anyways, she saw I wasn’t interested in the mess she did, she got another bread, toasted it, put it next to the previous one (at that point, I knew what she wanted to do but I didn’t wanna believe she would) guess what, she started picking the chicken and the cheese already toasted and placing inside the new bread. My jaw dropped! More like a kid having fun with slime! And asked what else do I want? I was so disgusted and told her, I can’t believe what she just did! All the while the initial artist attending to me had this sorry look on her face but you can practically feel the fear in her stance, her arms folded with a pale look on her face.

I walked out, never to...