Strange Subway Orders You Might Want To Avoid

When the craving hits, or you want a particularly tasty lunch, does anything beat popping into a Subway for a satisfying footlong sandwich? It might not be anything particularly fancy, but you can personalize it to your heart's content with your choice of bread, and unlimited array of toppings. Some Subway sandwiches would even be considered nutritious, especially when compared with other fast food offerings. However, with an endless amount of choices, some people make some very strange requests.

There's certainly no accounting for taste, but some of the bizarre flavor, texture, and taste combinations people swear they enjoy at Subway will leave you scratching your head. Some are just a little odd, some are ridiculous, and some should quite frankly come with a health warning. Subway employees tell of strange sandwiches they've had to make for customers, all with a straight face and a smile. Here's a list of the strange Subway sandwich orders you may want to avoid.

A report surfaced on CNN that Subway might be up for sale in 2023. Subway is a privately held company, and if they do sell, it's predicted it could go for more than $10 billion. That's a big step up from the company's humble beginnings in 1965. You probably didn't know that Subway was founded by a 17-year-old named Fred DeLuca. As the company website explains, DeLuca started the business so he could pay his way through college. He borrowed $1,000 from a family friend, Dr. Peter Buck, and they launched the business together. The first Subway opened in Bridgeport, Connecticut in August 1965.

The restaurant expanded to 16 stores by 1974, all in Connecticut, and they then started franchising to expand the business further. In 2015, DeLuca's sister took over the company when Fred became ill. Then John Chidsey took over as CEO in 2019. This was the first time the company had been run by someone other than the original Subway family. Perhaps the family was so offended by some of the odd orders people were putting in, they needed someone else to head up the business?

Subway has a good range of sauces available for your sandwich. Some of these have been around for decades, whereas others are relatively new to the menu. According to a survey on people's favorite Subway sauces by Mashed in 2022, perhaps surprisingly, oil and vinegar came out as the most popular choice. In close second place is sweet onion sauce, followed by honey mustard, peppercorn ranch, Baja chipotle, and Buffalo sauce. 

On occasion, people might ask for half of one sauce on one half of their sandwich, and a different one on the other half. That's fine. But one woman went all in and requested every single sauce on her sub, all the way from Baja chipotle to peppercorn ranch, via mustard, aioli, and sweet onion teriyaki. According to a Subway employee on Reddit, they even asked the customer if they were joking, but no, the customer really did want every single dressing. "It was the biggest, most disgusting mess I had ever made," the Subway employee said.

Of course, when you say something like this, it makes people really want to try it, even if it's out of morbid curiosity. Milad Mirg gave it a go on YouTube, racking up millions of views. He said, "What if a customer comes in and asks for an all-sauce sandwich? And my simple answer to that is, no."

Sometimes, a little sweet and savory combination can work really well. Chocolate and chili, honey and root vegetables, maple syrup and bacon, pears and blue cheese ... they're all classic flavor combinations we know and love. However, one person took it too far and requested cookies crammed into their Subway sandwich, along with everything else.

As one Subway employee recalled on Reddit, an older couple came in to a store. The man's wife wouldn't let him have any cookies because he apparently had a health condition. They argued about it the entire time they waited in line for their sandwich to be made. When the guy's wife was in the bathroom, the man whispered, "I want those ... cookies, smash them in my sandwich before she comes back."

The customer is always right, so the Subway employee did as he was told, and watched the man chomp down the sandwich happily. "It was awesome ... and gross," he recalled. We can't imagine how well sweet onion teriyaki would go with chocolate chip cookies, but as long as the customer was happy. 

We all know what too much of a good thing can taste like. At first you're loving it, can't get enough, then after a while it catches up to you and you regret everything. How do you feel about mayonnaise? According to Livestrong, a lot of store-bought mayonnaise can contain high amounts of saturated fat, so could be seen as unhealthy. The Seattle Times says a tablespoon of mayo has 103 calories, 12 grams of fat, and two grams of saturated fat. However, you can always make your own mayonnaise at home.

As one Subway employee revealed on Reddit, one customer's love of mayo went way too far. The customer's instructions were, "Okay, I want a lot of mayo. Like, a lot." By accident, the cap popped off the mayo bottle, and drowned the sandwich with approximately a cup and a half of it. As you might expect, the Subway employee was going to start over again, but the customer "stops her and says that he'll take it as is, and that it is perfect." Now if that's not enough to put you off your next Subway, we're not sure what'll do it.

Two words you hope to never see together are "meatball" and "tuna." Surely no-one would enjoy that strange combination of Italian deliciousness with ... seafood. Well, as they say, if you can imagine it, it's probably happened. This tale is from a Subway customer on Reddit, who said a guy in front of them ordered a "meatball and tuna sub." Naturally, the Subway employee assumed the customer wanted two separate subs, but no, they wanted it all in the same sandwich. To make it even worse, the customer then asked it to be toasted.

Perhaps even stranger than that, one Subway customer on Reddit recalled the oddest thing he experienced someone else ordering. The sub consisted of, "Meatballs, pickles, jalapenos, pickles, pickles, banana peppers, pickles, oil, oil, oil, oil, oil, oil, OIL, OIL, OIL." The customer ended up eating lunch with the oily sandwich lover and said, "I wish I could say that the story ends there, but it doesn't. You see, I knew this young man, and we wound up eating lunch together. I got to watch as he licked his fingers, slurped down his sandwich, and then sucked the remaining oil out of his sandwich bag."

You might initially think no-one would order meatballs and mayonnaise together, but apparently the combination is quite commonplace. But as ever with these things, there's always someone who has to take things one step too far. 

One Grubhub driver on Reddit recalled a time when "someone ordered a meatball sub from Subway that had nothing on it but meatballs, the sauce, and about four times as much mayonnaise as would go on a regular sandwich. That was it." As if that wasn't intense enough, the same person ordered the same sandwich twice within the space of two hours.

The driver spoke with the Subway employee, who said the customer actually ordered the same thing two or three times a week. That's some serious meaty, mayonnaise dedication. Curiosity got the better of the Grubhub driver, who decided to try the combination themselves. Apparently the result was, "just slime on slime on slime," but at the same time they said, "it wasn't terrible, but it wasn't that good either."

When you go into a Subway, even if there's a line, the employees always get your sandwich ready to go as quickly as possible. But when you're faced with a customer ordering everything on one sandwich, of course that's going to take a little longer to get together. 

A Subway employee on Reddit fondly remembered the time a man came in and asked for a Feast (which has now been discontinued). When the employee asked if he wanted anything else on his sandwich, he asked for everything. "He got a FULL PORTION of EVERY SANDWICH on ONE bread (well actually two, I laid it down flat and put another whole loaf on top)," Floydiansworstenemy's said. Yes, this monstrosity included tuna on top of meatball on top of chicken on top of Philly steak on top of chicken teriyaki. 

A lot of time and effort went into the construction, with two microwaves and two toasters on the go to make the giant sub. Overall, it took almost 40 minutes. For health, the customer did ask for extra portions of every vegetable as well. The entire sandwich cost an eye-watering $75. And if that's not enough, the man who ordered it said it was for his wife, who eats one a day.

Toasted seafood. It doesn't sound particularly appetizing does it? When you go to Subway, the employees will ask if you want your sandwich toasted. If you're ordering seafood, toasting it isn't going to taste great, especially if it contains crab meat. Imagine the smell wafting through the store as your seafood monstrosity rapidly heats in just 21 seconds. 

A step up from the meatball and mayo combo, one Redditor said they used to have a regular customer who would order a meatball sub with scoops of "seafood sensation" (fortunately now discontinued) which was basically mayonnaise and imitation crab. Then have it toasted. Another replied, "A regular I had years ago would get the seafood, add tuna, add sweet onion sauce, toasted. Smelled like death."

As one of the worst foods to order from your favorite sandwich shop, one Subway employee said, "The seafood sensation has no crab in it, it's just coloring to make it orange and flavoring to make it taste like crab. It's actually fish." However, the same person did go on to say, "Everything else though is really good and is all prepared in a good way," which is a relief.

Most people would agree that a Subway sandwich tastes better toasted. According to KitchensHQ, Subway uses TurboChef convection ovens to get the job done, which can toast sandwiches to perfection in just 20 to 25 seconds. That's it, done. The sandwich doesn't need any longer. 

But there's one former Subway employee on Reddit who remembered a customer who wanted their sandwich a little more crispy. They said, "Had a regular come in at 3 a.m. usually that would request that we toast the s*** out of his sandwich. I'm talking the whole thing was basically charcoal." The former employee assumed the customer was messing with them while drunk, but no, apparently he just really loved the taste of burnt everything. "Grossed me out, but as long as he paid I didn't really care," they added. 

Another Redditor reported a similar story (perhaps it was the same person). They said, "I once had a gentleman who asked me to "burn the f***" out of his sandwich. He also wanted a fistful of onions and banana peppers on it while it was burning. After the sandwich was black and burnt to his satisfaction, he smiled and said "that was the best sandwich he ever had.""

People have strong opinions when it comes to sandwiches. One person's dream may be another's nightmare. But it does seem there's a Subway sub that the majority of people really don't enjoy. According to nearly 40% of people, the worst Subway sandwich is tuna. Mashed polled nearly 600 people in 2021, with simple tuna topping the most-hated list. No strange combination. No sandwich stuffed with cookies. Just tuna. Quite surprisingly, Veggie Delite came in second place with 28% of people saying they dislike the sandwich the most, and Meatball Marinara in third place. 

It's not the first time Subway's tuna has been in the spotlight, with a lawsuit filed in 2021 by two Subway customers alleging the tuna used isn't actually tuna. The story of the potentially imitation food went viral, reporters tested the fish at a food lab which found "no amplifiable tuna DNA was present in the sample," traces of other meat were found in another sample, yet another sample concluded the tuna was in fact tuna. To this day the court case rolls on (via NPR).