If Subway Stores Close In CNY, How Will It Affect Us?

Subway endeavored to be the largest fast food chain nationwide and with a store count almost twice that of McDonald's, they've achieved that but to what end?

At the end of 2017, Subway has closed a tad over 900 of it's 26,700-ish stores which is reportedly 3 times the number of the year previous with no end in sight. The likelihood that a handful of those 20 CNY stores closing seems high, especially in light of Pizza Hut's recent woes., but even if we lose a handful of underperforming stores, we can still get our sandwich fix pretty easily!

For years, Subway has seemed more invested in opening locations than making sure stores can increase sales. Subway would sign off on franchisees opening locations near existing stores. The chain would get more money in franchise fees, but franchisees would end up competing against one another for sales.

To put it into perspective, a quick search on the Subway store locator reveals that there are 20 stores within an 18 mile radius of this radio station, half of which are within the first 5 miles of driving! That's an overall average of one store for every square mile in our listening area in Central New York. Put another way, most of these stores are actually within walking distance of each other. This matches the point of fast food, and what's faster than barely having to even go get it now?

When I was growing up in the 80's, we were lucky if we had one of each fast food chain (available at the time) in town and in some cases had to drive to the next town if we got a specific hankering. Now, most chains have multiple stores in the same town and this is likely one of the problems that Subway is facing, besides past heat from the not-so-foot-long sandwiches and their presently incarcerated spokesman.