Jimmy John's — Restaurant in Arlington

TL;DR: While the food preparation at this location is also sub-standard, there is ONE major problem here, and it's the employee who takes the orders. Read on if you want details.

I want to start with two things: I love Jimmy John's. Where I used to live, I went there every Wednesday for like 5 years straight. I almost never write negative reviews. In fact, this is my first one on Google. If I don't like a place, I just move on, but this isn't just about the food.

This location has a problem with a single individual. Look through all of the other recent reviews and you'll see a repeated theme talking about a single person. He might be the worst person I've ever encountered in a service situation. I get physically uncomfortable when I think about the encounters that I've had with him, and it's incredibly frustrating because of how much I like Jimmy John's subs. Let's go with an example.

I walk in, walk over to the counter, and he's doing something in the back. I wait. The two people who make the subs speak zero English, not a single word. I can't speak to them, and they don't greet me because they can't speak English. Not even, "Hello," apparently. I wait. He never looks over. Eventually he walks to the register and says nothing. He doesn't look at me. He stares at the wall to his right. I say something like, "Hey there, could I get a number 6, please." He interrupts me with, "Is that all?" I say, "No, could I get that without tomatoes and with mayonnaise?" He interrupts again, "IS THAT ALL?" I say, "No, could you take the bread out please?" Gruffly, "IS THAT ALL!?" Throughout all of this he looks forward and down only to enter the order into the register, then he looks off to the side again. Never looked at me, not once. Always gruff. Always dismissive. Always acting like he would rather jump off a cliff than do what he's there to do.

Look, people have bad days, and it's a literal life goal of mine to always treat people in service positions with respect and kindness, even if they're not returning it, because I don't know what's going on with them. I have never treated this person in any way other than respectfully, but he is consistently and actively abrasive, condescending, dismissive, mean, bored-acting and any other number of adjectives. Almost every single recent review refers to this.

On top of all of that, my order has been wrong like more than 50% of the time I've been there. There's no way to communicate with the people who make the order, and there's no way to communicate with the guy who takes the order, because he doesn't give a crap about anyone but himself.

I am not a person who has social anxiety, but I feel what I think must be the closest thing for me when I think about going back here. I'll have days where I think, "Oh man, I haven't had Jimmy J... oh right. FFS, I can't go there." It's incredibly frustrating.

Also, I swear to God if you respond with that cookie-cutter BS you respond to everyone else here with, I'm going to make it my goal to make sure that your corporate overlords hear from me. Who knows if that will do anything, but I will do it anyway.

How do you fix this? Listen to the reviews and evaluate your...

Thankfully, this isn't my usual Jimmy John's location - it's freaky slow! I've ordered from here twice in the last couple of months because it was closer to where I was headed. The first visit I was held up and didn't get to the restaurant until 25 minutes after I placed my order, so I expected it would be ready and waiting for me on the pick-up shelf. Wrong. I got there and didn't find my food, so I asked about it and after they located my order I was told they would have to mix up more tuna fish and it would be about 15 minutes. So after 40 minutes I finally had my lunch - nothing fast about that! I went again yesterday and, again, ordered ahead of time on my app - a wrap and a slim sandwich. I got to the restaurant 10 minutes later and had to wait an additional 15 for my food, mind you it was not busy with customers and the workers were taking their sweet time making food. After I had waited for at least five minutes with my two children in tow they finally acknowledged me and asked what I had ordered. They then pulled the order ticket from the top of the printer and finally made my sandwiches. I get that it can get busy, but this was well before the lunch rush and I was in the restaurant and could see that it most definitely was not busy. This location is just plain slow, so don't expect your typical "freaky fast" sandwich experience when...

This place is wonderful! I've seen this sandwich restaurant around Northern Virginia, but didn't have a chance to try it until last Friday. The people who served me were really friendly and the sandwich was prepared fast and with care. By the time I had ordered, there seemed to be a lot of people and a line started to form behind me. At about the same time, I watched as two more staffers came on-board to start helping Customers. They looked very efficient. The store was very clean and there were many clean tables available. I came in right around lunch time and it was understandable that there was a lunch crowd. I ordered a steak and cheese sandwich on a large wonderful Kaiser roll with an order of potato chips. I couldn’t finish the sandwich because it was so big, and the chips were really good as well. It was a great lunch experience overall and I will definitely come back to try...