Jimmy John's Has An Older Sister Chain That Might Surprise You

While you probably think of Jimmy John's as a standalone sandwich chain, the truth is, it's actually part of an unspoken family of restaurants. Jimmy John's is owned by Inspire Brands, which also owns Arby's (which we maintain is vastly underrated). Inspire Brands also has a parent company, Roark Capital Group, which is a private equity firm that owns some restaurants of its own. One of them is also a sub shop, which just so happens to be Subway. So this means Roark has ownership of both Jimmy John's and Subway, making them sandwich siblings of sorts, a fact that you might not be aware of.

In comparison to Jimmy John's, Subway is much older. It was founded in 1965 in Bridgeport, Connecticut, by Fred DeLuca and nuclear physicist (yes, that's correct) Dr. Peter Buck, using just $1,000. They called it "Pete's Super Submarines," and by 1974, the two had well over a dozen restaurants operating. Eventually, they renamed it to "Subway" and started franchising the customizable sandwich chain. In comparison to Subway's origins, Jimmy John's also had a scrappy start-up story, founded by Jimmy John Liautaud in 1983, nearly 20 years after Subway opened its doors. He opened up shop in Charleston, Illinois, with only four sandwiches on the menu (now there are 18). In the next few years, Liautaud would open a few more stores in the nearby region, and the chain would quickly expand afterwards.

Both companies went on to be a wild success, which means, inevitably, larger companies saw an opportunity to snatch them up. Jimmy John's was actually sold first — Liautaud completed the sale to Inspire Brands in 2019, and he stepped back to play the role of advisor to his former sandwich chain. And in 2023, after a long search for a buyer (and plenty of signs of struggle along the way), Subway finally found itself being courted by Roark Capital Group, eventually closing the deal for a reported $9.55 billion.

Subway's history is just about 20 years longer than Jimmy John's, and it's had a pretty controversial run, though mostly not in great ways. Redditors can't forgive the chain for Jared Fogle's lingering presence (even though he's long gone), and there's the tumultuous $5 footlong deal that would lose franchise owners money. And who could forget that whole tuna debacle? Then, on Jimmy John's side, Liautaud did sit in the hot seat for a while when it was discovered he used to enjoy hunting big game, some of it endangered. But these are all stories from the past now, as their respective private equity owners have simply turned their focus to making money. The two chains just happen to quietly reside in the same hands.