Jersey Mike's Uses Day-Old Bread — But Only For This Type Of Sandwich, According To Reddit

Jersey Mike's Subs makes freshness and top quality an important part of its brand identity. It touts that it uses private label meats and cheeses sliced fresh for each sandwich, that the subs are made in front of you, and that the bread is baked in each of its stores daily. But some workers have claimed online that they'll use day-old bread for the hot sandwiches.

Workers said on Reddit that Jersey Mike's will heat bread from the day before on the grill for the hot subs, which are nearly all beef and chicken cheesesteaks. One wrote, "At my [store] we only use the bread from the day before for hot subs all cold subs use fresh bread," and a former worker commented, "Hot subs will traditionally use older bread in the early hours." Employees defended this online, saying that warming the rolls on the grill restores their fresh taste, and that the day-old bread doesn't get as soggy from the cheesesteak grease. They also explained that fresh bread is more likely to stick to the grill and break apart.

Workers additionally noted that bread is made fresh throughout the day, so the rolls may have been baked later the previous day instead of in the morning, and that they also only use old bread for hot subs until 2 p.m. They added that the bread is kept in a dedicated container to keep it soft, and that they throw away any that gets too hard.

Jersey Mike's offers five kinds of bread — white, wheat, rosemary parmesan, seeded Italian, and gluten-free — which landed on the good side of our roundup of the highest and lowest quality sandwich chain breads. (For those eating low-carb, there's also a bread-free hack that gets you a "sub in a tub.") But while it is true that Jersey Mike's is one of the chains that bake their own bread, its employees don't actually make the dough themselves.

Jersey Mike's considers the water in its founding state to be key to the bread's flavor. To ensure the sub rolls have that consistent taste everywhere, the dough is made by Guttenplan's, a supplier in New Jersey, and sent to each location as frozen sticks. After they arrive at the store, they are thawed, proofed, and baked at each location.

A store worker showed the process in an online video, which begins by putting the frozen dough sticks in bread form pans and thawing them in the refrigerator. Once thawed, the dough is stretched a bit to fit the form and sprayed with water to help keep the bread from drying out. It then is put in a preheated proofer with temperature and humidity controls to rise. Before going in the oven, the proofed white bread rolls are scored to release gases, and the rosemary parmesan rolls are sprinkled with the dried herb and cheese. Finally, the bread is baked for 12 to 14 minutes until the sub rolls are golden brown.