Just when you think you know Jimmy John’s, you really don’t.
This iconic sub delivery chain, once the go-to choice for students and late night party goers
everywhere, has its own fair share of facts and trivia ready to be discovered.
Are you ready to fill your brain with this fascinating information?
Then here are the top 10 untold truths of Jimmy John’s.
From Humble Beginnings
Jimmy John’s didn’t exactly start out as the mega sandwich king that it is today.
At the young age of 19, founder Jimmy John Liautaud decided to start a business.
His military veteran father wanted him to go into the army, but that wasn’t what he
saw for his future.
So, they made an agreement: his father would give him an investment of $25,000 to open
a business, and if he wasn’t successful within a year, he’d join the army.
His original idea was to open a hot dog stand, but he soon realized that was out of the question
financially.
The costs of operating were too high for what it was worth.
Finding inspiration in a nearby sub shop that essentially just sold subs and beer, an idea
began to click in his mind.
The beer was too expensive to sell, but he could definitely pull off sandwiches with
the money he had.
So, he purchased an extremely basic place in Charleston, Illinois - we’re talking
nothing but a meat slicer, a fridge, and an oven.
There wasn’t even enough cash for an ice maker, so people had to deal with room temperature
drinks (or bring their own ice cubes).
He reportedly chose the area because he had cousins that attended university there, so
he knew the area was teeming with hungry college students.
With just four sandwiches on the menu, Jimmy John began catering to the late night bar
crowd in the area and engaging in super low-budget marketing tactics such as handing out free
subs on the streets.
Slowly but surely, the business took off.
The Biggest Jimmy John Fan…
Ever
While there are tons of celebrities out there who have publicly expressed their love for
certain fast food places, Drew Brees has to take the cake.
The New Orleans quarterback is obsessed and may be the biggest fan of the restaurant in
the history of the franchise.
When he was studying and playing football at Purdue University, he had his first taste
of a Jimmy John’s sandwich and it was an instant love affair.
From there, he spent many of his lunch and snack breaks chowing down on the famous sandwiches
and began to realize he simply couldn’t live without them.
He reportedly loved the #9 Italian Night Club so much that he chose it as his jersey number
when he got drafted into the NFL.
One of the NFL’s highly successful, Super Bowl winning quarterbacks is rocking the number
of his favorite sandwich at Jimmy John’s.
Now, Brees is a proud owner of several Jimmy John’s franchises and plans to open quite
a few more.
In addition to the Jimmy John’s locations, Brees and his wife also co-own multiple Walk-On’s
Bistreaux & Bar locations in Louisiana, and recently announced that he was also opening
five new Dunkin Donuts locations in the state.
There seems to be no stopping this guy, even though he’s still actively playing football
on the side.
Jimmy John Never Even Had a Business Plan
If there’s anything they teach you in business school, it’s that you always need a business
plan.
Jimmy John clearly didn’t listen to that.
Even to this day, he still says he’s never made one because he never expected it to become
as huge as it is.
Now, he’s sitting happy, as he was named one of the wealthiest people by Forbes last
year.
He claims that, throughout the rise of the sandwich empire, he did his own accounting
and made sure that all of his debt was paid off as soon as he could.
A total of 10 stores were opened in the first 10 years of business, so he was opening roughly
a store per year.
To his credit, putting a sandwich shop smack dab in the middle of bars in a college town
was a pretty genius decision and is probably the major reason for his rise to success.
However, it should be noted that Jimmy John sold off the company and only owns a 35% share,
so since it’s run by a big corporation now, it’s very likely that there’s a business
plan finally in place.
In 2016, Roark Capital Group (who also have investments in other fast food joints like
Carl’s Jr. and Arby’s) purchased a majority stake in Jimmy John’s.
Jimmy John himself still has the largest individual ownership share for a single individual, but
he’s no longer the only man in charge.
It Wasn’t All Glorious
At one point, Jimmy John had to do some major damage control when a large number of the
restaurant locations were starting to fail.
While expansion happened steadily, he began to franchise his stores.
In 2002, there were 160 total locations in the United States, but 70 of those stores
were failing.
We’re talking almost half of the stores nationwide.
At that time, Jimmy John himself only owned 10% of the stores under the corporation.
But it’s all a learning process.
Jimmy John stopped selling stores for a year and focused on bringing those stores that
were struggling back up to their glory days.
He realized that the people who were buying the franchises weren’t really prepared to
put in the hard work and dedication that he had been doing for so many years already.
Ultimately, he used this situation to create stricter, more explicit rules for people who
wanted to buy a Jimmy John’s franchise.
This would make sure that anyone running the stores from now on were highly qualified and
aware of the tough work that they’d have to put in.
So, by putting eager franchise buyers to the test, he was able to get things back on track
and continue down the road to expansion.
To this day, there are over 2,000 Jimmy John’s locations in the United States and future
plans to expand internationally.
It’s All in The Details
From the moment Jimmy John began to franchise his sub shop, he made sure that there was
a consistency for all locations.
All of the details, down to the placement of the sinks, were standardized.
Jimmy John’s prides itself on avoiding artificial ingredients, using fresh produce at every
store.
The bread is baked in house daily, and they have publicly spoken about their dedication
to using local farms and businesses for food supplies in each restaurant.
Their dedication to freshness has actually backfired at times, because in the effort
to keep things as fresh as possible, the chain has very small delivery zones from each store.
Some restaurants will only deliver five minutes away, and they don’t use any third party
delivery apps, like Skip the Dishes or Uber Eats, because this can affect the freshness
and timing of the delivered goods.
Of course, that’s led to some backlash from upset customers who don’t live close enough
to qualify for these quick delivery services.
Speed for making the sandwiches themselves is also a key.
According to Jimmy John, all of his employees at his restaurants can make a sandwich in
exactly 60 seconds.
Making a Dying Man’s Last Wish Come True
In 2012, Jimmy John’s got some major karma points.
A man named John Marmaud, who was a huge Jimmy John’s fan, was dying of cancer and wanted
one last taste of his favorite tuna sandwich before he passed.
His wife, Jeannie, wanted to make it happen but she didn’t have a car and the couple
lived outside of their city’s delivery zone.
She was even ready to walk and meet them wherever the zone ended.
Luckily, she didn’t have to do that.
After she frantically called the store and told them the situation, Jimmy John’s agreed
to make an exception to get the food to him.
When the delivery driver showed up, she refused to take Jeannie’s money.
John died a few days later, and Jeannie later said that this was likely his last real meal.
This isn’t the only time the restaurant chain did a good deed for someone.
In 2018, a frantic woman from Florida called a Nebraska location mistaking it for her brother’s
social worker.
Her brother, who was very sick and had recently gone through spinal fusion surgery, was undergoing
a medical emergency and needed a ride to the hospital as soon as possible.
She was trying to call the social worker to take him when she got Jimmy John’s instead.
However, instead of hanging up on her and telling her she had the wrong number, the
employees at Jimmy John’s sent over one of their drivers to pick up her brother and
take him to the hospital.
No Stranger to Sparking a Media Frenzy
Jimmy John himself has come under fire by the media, animal lovers on social media,
and animal rights activists because of his other love aside from sandwiches: trophy hunting.
As many of us are well aware, especially after the controversial killing of Cecil the Lion,
this is something that can get you an unfavorable popular opinion.
Just recently, an image of Jimmy John posing with an elephant that he’d shot and killed
circulated around social media and ignited a firestorm of angry feedback.
However, this is not the first time this has happened.
Back in 2015, photos circulated of him posing with dead elephants, rhinos, and even a leopard
from a 2010 African safari hunting trip.
According to those who helped circulate the images, these weren’t the only ones in existence,
either.
Each time these photos have circulated on social media, they’ve sparked people calling
for boycotts of the restaurant.
The Jimmy John’s Secret Menu
Most fast food lovers are well aware that their favorite chains always have those secret
items only the pros know about.
Jimmy John’s is no exception.
There are a few specific sandwiches you can get, but only if you ask for them.
If you love meat, you’ll probably be into the Gargantuan.
It’s basically a giant pile of meat on your sandwich, including salami, roast beef, ham,
and capicola.
There’s also the Noah’s Ark, which is essentially just double of everything in the
sandwich.
And if you want a BLT, but mostly just love the bacon, you can get Slim BLT, which is
essentially a B without the L and T. So, that’s just a slim sub with approximately six pieces
of bacon.
Most of the subs just come with Dijon mustard, but if you ask for it, you can get packets
of regular yellow mustard.
They don’t have a wide variety readily available because they have a super speedy reputation
to hold, but you can still get your plain ol’ mustard if you want it.
Speedy Delivery Has Sometimes Come at a Cost
The super quick delivery service has backfired on the company a couple times in the past
after causing accidents that led to lawsuits against them.
It’s known as their “freaky fast” service (they’ve even sponsored some Nascar drivers
in the past to get the point across), but at times, it’s also been freakishly tragic.
The first incident was in 2011, when a Jimmy John’s delivery truck hit a 19-year-old
man riding a motorcycle in Las Vegas.
Ty Cirillo, the motorcyclist, suffered severe injuries and was told he would never be able
to walk again.
Two years later, in 2013, a West Virginia Jimmy John’s delivery truck hit a 79-year-old
man who did not survive the accident.
The man, Robert McClain, was walking his dog at the time.
Sources said that the truck was going very fast, and reports state that the driver was
looking at the clock, not on the road, when he hit the man.
His daughter ended up suing the restaurant chain for not putting enough emphasis on safety
with their speedy delivery.
Most recently, in 2018, a woman driving a Jimmy John’s delivery truck hit a 5-year-old
boy who was riding his bicycle in Wayland, Michigan.
Unfortunately, the boy died.
All of these incidents have caused some people to label the speedy delivery service as leading
to reckless and dangerous driving, causing a damper on their reputation.
A Non-Compete Clause Caused a Controversy
In another bout of negative publicity, Jimmy John’s got some bad press in 2016 due to
a non-compete clause that they reportedly made all of their employees sign in their
contract when first hired.
The clause stated that no employee would be allowed to work at a competing sandwich shop
or deli within a specific radius of that Jimmy John’s location.
This clause not only applied to them while they worked at Jimmy John’s, but also for
two years after they left.
When word got out about this, many states actually took the sandwich icon to court,
arguing that this clause was restricting to employees and locked people into low-wage
jobs.
After spending some time in court, Jimmy John’s finally agreed to remove the clause from their
employee contracts.
They also agreed to donate $100,000 toward education programs that would help people
learn more about and understand what non-competing clauses really mean.
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