DO NOT Go To The Subway on Michigan Avenue!

The owner of this restaurant should be absolutely ashamed to be in business!

 

Kaleb and I were out running some errands today.  In the car between stops, he looked at me and said, "Eat, eat?"  It's his standard 'I'm hungry' phrase.  I glanced at the clock and realized that it was almost 1:00!  Time had gotten away from me, and now I had a hungry 2-year-old asking to eat.

It wasn't really convenient to have to go all the way home and prepare lunch, so I decided we'd stop someplace and eat.  Kaleb thinks it's really fun when he gets to go out to eat with Mommy, and today is his birthday.  I wasn't in the mood for greasy food like burgers and fries, though, so I picked Subway.  It was right on the way to our next stop, and wouldn't really be busy this time of day.

We get to the restaurant and nearly get run over in the parking lot by some asshole in a gigantic pick-up who's so busy talking on his cell phone that he doesn't notice us walking before he decides to back out of a parking spot.  It's already a tight parking lot, so you really have to pay attention... he wasn't.

Inside, we got in line behind two other customers.  The three guys working behind the counter looked like 18-year-old pot heads.  I ordered a turkey sandwich kid's meal with milk and yogurt for Kaleb.  For myself, I ordered a turkey salad with lettuce and spinach and cucumber.  When the guy started to out the cucumber onto my salad, I asked if he could quarter the slices to they would spread better across the salad.  He rolled his eyes, washed off a knife, and did as I had asked.  When I asked for cheese, he asked what kind I wanted.  I asked if they had any shredded cheese for salads at that location (not all stores carry the same stuff).  His response?  "Well, the shredded cheese isn't really for salads, but I can put some on there."  It irked me... why would it matter what the cheese went onto?!  I ignored it and asked for the shredded cheese.

We made it down to the register where the register guy had Kaleb's meal and my salad waiting for us.  He asked what kind of dressing I wanted for my salad.  I said I wanted Ranch but didn't want any crackers, croûtons, or bacon bits.  He stepped away and came back with bacon bits, crackers, croûtons, and  Thousand Island dressing.  I gave it all back to him, and asked him to bring back only Ranch dressing.

I paid for our food, and carried it to a table.  I sat Kaleb in a high chair, and was pulling him up to the table when I saw some food smeared on the table.  I looked around for another table (they were all available), but every one of them was disgusting.  I knew I couldn't eat on a dirty table.  As it was too chilly outside today for an impromptu picnic, I decided we would have to go home to eat.  I gathered our things to leave.  Before I left, I told the employees that they should be ashamed at the filth on the tables.

As we walked to the car, Kaleb began to cry.  He was hungry, and he didn't understand why I wasn't giving him his food.  He cried all the way home... on his birthday.

We got home, and I unpacked Kaleb's food onto his table and sat him down to eat.  There was no spoon in our bag, so I got one from our kitchen for him to eat his yogurt.  Then I sat down to prepare my salad.  I opened the bowl and noticed immediately that some of the lettuce looked brown.  As I dug around, I found out that most of the lettuce was wilted and/or slimy.  I dumped the whole salad into the trash.  I looked over to where Kaleb was sitting at his table.  He had eaten all the yogurt, but was completely unable to bite through the bread on his sandwich; it was too hard.  I threw away the sandwich too.

I found other lunch for Kaleb, and he was satisfied and happy again.  The bowl of slimy lettuce had killed my appetite, so I chose to just skip lunch.  While Kaleb was eating and watching a DVD of Clifford the Big, Red Dog, I got online and filled out the web survey at the website listed on my receipt.  I also went directly to the Subway website and sent a similar message on their Customer Contact Form, and then followed up with a call to their 24-hour toll-free Customer Service hotline.

After that, and after shedding a few tears from sheer frustration, I felt much better.

I can say, though, that I will surely not be returning to that Subway Restaurant again, regardless of its convenience.

[This review expresses only the thoughts and opinions of the blog author.  It was not paid for nor solicited by the company/product/entity being reviewed, nor do they offer any endorsement of the opinions contained herein.]