Quiznos bought out?

This may be old news but ive never been able to get a definitive answer. Was quiznos bought by McDonalds? I remember back when they had great commercials with a singing rodent wearing a sombrero. It was the greatest commercial I have ever see becasue it was so odd i couldnt take my eyes off it whenever it was on. Now the commercials are lame and ordinary.

Quiznos is currently owned by several private equity firms. Consequently, little information is available about them.

quote:

Originally posted by Optimus

Now the commercials are lame and ordinary.

And their food is not even up to the standard of "lame and ordinary". The one time that I ate a Quizno's sandwich, I kept asking myself, "How can something with this many ingredients have absolutely no flavor?".

quote:

Originally posted by Tedbear

quote:

Originally posted by Optimus

Now the commercials are lame and ordinary.

And their food is not even up to the standard of "lame and ordinary". The one time that I ate a Quizno's sandwich, I kept asking myself, "How can something with this many ingredients have absolutely no flavor?".

That's exactlyhow I felt. I had this huge roast beast sandwich and I couldn't believe how flavorless it was. It was the worst $11 lunch I ever had (Sub, chips, drink). I know I posted my experience somewhere on this site.

No matter how charming (??) a commercial with singing rats may be, I see absolutely no reason to patronize a restaurant that features overpriced, flavorless food.

I see no reason to patronize a restaurant that advertises using rats! Those are typically to be avoided in food-type establishments, cutesy Disney movies aside.

quote:

Originally posted by Tedbear

quote:

Originally posted by Optimus

Now the commercials are lame and ordinary.

And their food is not even up to the standard of "lame and ordinary". The one time that I ate a Quizno's sandwich, I kept asking myself, "How can something with this many ingredients have absolutely no flavor?".

Sounds like anything my youngest daughter makes for her husband. He won't eat anything he can actually taste.

There are stories galore circulating around Quiznos (I read that they dropped the apostrophe). The main ones are how they sold off their revenue stream to an investment outfit, but still own a minority share. They get the franchisees to sell 2 buck sandwiches and 5 buck foot-longs that are supposedly killing the stores as to any profit.

Quiznos doesn't care, because they make a fortune on everything they sell the store and grab their 11% from the gross, not the net. So the more numbers that churn through the register, the more the poor franchisee pays to headquarters and they could not care less if the stores have any profits left. Any coupons or discounts that headquarters offers are eaten by the stores with no rebates from headquarters.

Supposedly most stores are losing money and they are closing rapidly, though Quiznos still lists closed stores on their website as being open. There is a website called "I sold my Quiznos," which has close to 400 stores for sale. I found 2 fairly new stores in Florida that are for sale for 15K and for 22K. It costs about 250K to get one open. I've heard that some owners would give them away if they could find someone to take them, just to get out from under Quiznos' noose.

It's common knowledge that Quiznos' food costs are around 20% higher than Subway's, as Subway uses an owner's co-op. Quizno stores have to buy EVERYTHING from Quiznos at inflated prices. They pay the same price for a Pepsi BIB that I do, and my franchisor only has about 60 locations. They have to buy the Pepsi BIBS through a Quizno supplier. They can't order direct from Pepsi, so that headquarters gets a bigger bite. They could buy their cheeses and peppers for 1/2 locally of what they pay Quiznos, but if Quiznos catches any infractions, they love to cancel the franchise and get a new franchise-fee paying sucker in there.

Encroachment is also a serious problem for the stores. They'll open one 2 blocks from another. For them, having 2 stores doing 6K per month is better than one doing 10K. Consequently, neither store can make money. Quiznos was sued for taking large deposits for new stores and then dragging their feet on helping get them open. The agreement says that the potential franchisee loses his deposit (25K, I believe), if they don't get their store open within 18 months. Quiznos made sure they didn't by disapproving sites, etc. Quiznos pocketed around 25 million without lifting a finger. Of course the victims only got a portion back after legal fees.

The latest I heard was that people were getting layed off and/or quitting in droves at headquarters. Also heard that several stores got checks for some reason from headquarters and they were NSF. Most of my info comes from www.bluemaumau.org, a site for primarily franchisees with some franchisors participating. Do a search on Quiznos and you'll be thinking, "How could this be?"

Quiznos ... that's the company that put their name on the Gund Arena in Cleveland, right? LOL

The one down the street from me is owned by nobody.

Quiznos bought out???? Wow, hope the quality of their food doesn't suffer!

Quiznots is awful. They burn their sandwiches and they do not know the meaning of customer service.

Another problem for Quiznos. Their bread supplier just folded their tents all across the country a few days ago (Gerard Bakery, I think). I'd guess that they signed an extended contract with Q guaranteeing prices and they got hammered with the outrageous rise in the cost of flour. There's a Quiznos 2 doors from me. It'll be interesting to see if they found a new source yet and if they're open tomorrow.