You'd think most Subway workers, AKA sandwich artists, would lead normal lives. Well, that's until these customers ordered the more bizarre and disgusting sandwiches known to man.
(Content has been edited for clarity).
Green Pickles And Ham?
“I’ve seen a subway order that’s shaken me to the core, and if I can spread the story to just one person, it’s worth it. A lady in front of me orders a salad, so far so good. Nothing too concerning. Then she says she would like it plain. The worker asks what she would like on her salad. She doesn’t want lettuce, onions or spinach. She orders one slice of ham in the middle of the plastic bowl. Then she asks for pickles. The worker puts a handful on, but the lady wants MORE. I’m perplexed in line behind her, and it’s starting to get hard to keep a straight face. The worker piles on another two full handfuls of pickles on. The lady pipes up, can I just get a little more. The worker gives her a wary eye but submits and adds one final handful to her bowl. She proceeds to pay, her final order being one slice of ham and the remainder of the bowl filled with pickles.”
All’s Fair In Onions And War
“I no longer work at Subway, but this lady always stuck with me.
She would come in and clean out our onions. Every single time. This woman didn’t eat like a supermodel, nor did she look it. She had about a buck 50 on me. But every single time, without fail, no matter how many onions you put on her sandwich, she would ask for more.
We’re usually instructed to just pepper a few onions on there, but to her, she would walk in and get a normal sandwich. But then when it came to the onions she would say, ‘Can I get extra, extra, extra onions?’ Every time. You could put entire freaking hand fulls on it, and it wouldn’t satisfy her hunger.
After I put in my two weeks, she happened to come in again. I decided to push it to the limit. We had just stocked the cambros (the little black containers that hold the food), and I knew there wouldn’t be any lasting repercussion. She ordered extra, and so I put the entire cambro’s worth of onions on there. It didn’t even get close to closing all the way, but I cut it and wrapped it none the less. She paid and said, ‘Finally. I’m so happy that you guys are finally giving me a fair amount of onions.’
That mess broke me. There was no winning. I couldn’t possibly work there any longer after that.”
This Kid Should’ve Said No Instead Of May-O
“I wasn’t an employee, but a kid in his early teens in front of me ordered a foot long sandwich with turkey and mayonnaise. But it wasn’t just a little squirt of mayo. He kept asking the sandwich artist for more and more. It got to the point that both sides of the sandwich were covered with a THICK layer of mayonnaise. You couldn’t see any part of the bread or turkey. The sandwich artist finally said that it was going to cost the kid more than a normal sandwich because it was so much mayo. He finally told the sandwich artist it was enough and when the artist closed the sandwich (with not much pressure at all), mayo squirt out from everywhere. I think I may have thrown up in my mouth a little.
Side note, the kid was with his mom, and she didn’t seem bothered by this whole ordeal. They were both in very fit shape as well.”
It Takes A Special Type Of Food Worker To Take These Crazy Orders
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“I’m an ex-Subway Sandwich Artist. Here are my few experiences.
Worst Kind:
- A Philly steak and cheese sandwich with double meat and all the veggies and vinaigrette. Hated to make this because it is nearly impossible to close that darn thing.
- For Indians, It is either a Veggie patty with all the veggies and a half a bottle of sauce.
Unique Kind:
- I used to have a sweet old man come in to get a sandwich every Wednesday. A six-inch turkey sandwich, cheese and toasted, with a sprinkle of lettuce, green peppers and three handfuls (not joking, three handfuls) of jalapenos. He would sit there and eat and would not even break a sweat. He also used to tip us three bucks. Miss that old man.
Disgusting Kind:
- Tuna sandwich with all the veggies and all the sauces. Yes. All the sauces, including Parmesan cheese. I was appalled making that.
- Remember, Subway used to do Pizzas on their flatbread and had a promotion of two for six bucks or something when they first introduced? A guy walks in and says he wants to get that. Pepperoni for both, all the veggies, including the Lettuce on both. Yes, you heard it right. Lettuce on the pepperoni pizza and had me toast those suckers.
Also, I hate when people ask for a crap ton of veggies and sauces and get mad when we give it to them, and everything is falling off of the sandwich, I mean come on guys, there’s only so much that bread can hold before everything falls off. Have some common sense.”
This Subway Worker Found Out People Can Have Some Weird Taste Buds
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“Back when I used to work in a subway, I’ve seen a couple of gross ones.
Here’s a few I can remember. This obese guy would walk in a couple of times a week, take the cold cut combo. He asks for a ton of lettuce followed by the largest amount of mayonnaise you can imagine. He always emptied half the cup of mayo. It was probably more than enough mayo for 12 to 15 average customers. He then added a few other vegetables and was good to go. It always made me sick making him such a sandwich as I knew I was killing him.
Then, I’ve seen two normal looking persons take every single sauce on the menu. Not like a very thin line or anything. An extra dosage of every sauce while looking at me to make sure I put enough of each.
At subway, you can ask to grill vegetables with your bread/cheese/meat. I always grilled onions and peppers with mine for the flavor, multiple people were doing this. Then this guy walks in and asks me to grill his sub at the complete end after asking for lettuce, pickles, and sauce on it.”
Don’t Even Think About Holding The Salt
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“This dude came in and seemed fairly normal. He was talkative and laughed, but he wasn’t exactly the pinnacle of extrovertness either. I start making it, everything normal, and we get to the veggies. It was a steak and cheese sandwich at this point. He told me ‘skip the veggies’ and to ‘grab the salt please.’ Nothing too strange, and I did it as any normal person would.
He then says, ‘I like a lot of salt, so if you wanna just take off the cap that would probably make this faster.’ Weird, but it isn’t the first time I’ve had to do it. This guy then tells me to dump the entire cup of salt on his sandwich. The ENTIRE CUP! That’s a mug full of straight salt. I almost gagged ruining that sandwich like that.”
This Monstrosity Was “The Best Sandwich He Ever Had”
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“I once had a gentleman who asked me ‘burn the crap’ 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.'”
Guess They Eat Different Things In Europe
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“It was almost 20 years ago, and I’ll never forget. This eastern European couple would come in every week or so and order the same thing. Foot long white bread, double mayo on both sides of the bread. Crab meat (imitation crab and mayo). Sometimes they also got a bag of plain Lay’s chips. They also split a soda. After eating the sandwich, they would order a second and consume.
It’s not much, and there’s some nasty stuff in this thread, but I can’t under exaggerate how much mayo was on that thing. It oozed out under any slight pressure.
Only about six months in the line. That one is burned into memory, along with their faces and odd clothing.
Bonus: I also worked with a guy that ate one packet of BK mayo per cracker… About 20 or so crackers at a time. This was his daily snack between lunch and dinner.”
Why Didn’t You Just Go To The Grocery Store Dude?
“A decade ago, when I still worked there, the two weirdest subs I saw were opposite ends of the spectrum, but both meatball subs. Both were also regular orders, not one-offs.
A homeless man came in pretty frequently and always ordered a footlong meatball sub on a hearty Italian with every single veggie and sauce. Like. Adding oil AND buffalo AND mayo AND cucumbers AND lettuce AND raspberry vinaigrette…. you get the picture.
Another guy would get a meatball on white, ask for 28 slices of American cheese, and, once you had all 28 slices on there, he’d decide that wasn’t enough, and ask for more. Now: I like cheese as much as the next person. But 1. Subway white American ‘cheese.’ and 2. Meatball sub and American cheese? Not to mention 3. Every ‘double cheese’ was I think an extra dollar for a footlong. So for 40 crappy triangle slices of American ‘cheese’, he could’ve bought at literally rite aid’s one-shelf grocery section for cheaper on top of eight meatballs on that yoga mat bread he was dropping like $14 in the days of $5 footlongs.”
“People Are Weird As All Get Out, Subway Has At Least Taught Me That”
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“I’ve worked at Subway for only a couple of months, and yet I’ve had some outrageous requests.
One girl wanted her ham and turkey slices sliced into quarters. Weird, but doable. Until she started telling me the order, they were to be placed and arranged on the sandwich. And not just ham/turkey/ham/etc, I’m talking full-on ham/turkey/ham/ham/turkey/ham/turkey/etc with the predictability of pi. We’re talking 32 pieces of sliced meat, each the size of an oreo. I was in complete disbelief.
Of course, you have the semi-oddball who will tell you exactly how much of something they want (‘four spinach leaves’ or ‘three tomatoes’), but I will never understand the thinking of the guy who only wants one olive, and wants it hidden in his turkey Italiano. He turned around and waited till it was out of sight. I didn’t know what to do so I just stuck it under one of his pepperoni slices.
Then you have the people with just odd combinations, like steak and tuna with marinara sauce, or, my favorite, chicken teriyaki with buffalo chicken, bacon, honey mustard, ranch, lite mayo, and a whole shaker full of oregano. All on Flatbread. The thing looked like a lab experiment gone wrong.
Then the person who wanted their Doritos crunched up and mixed with their meatball, then double toasted. Another person did a similar thing with cookies, except it was on a personal pizza instead of a sandwich. I’m dead serious when I say they asked for all three of their macadamia cookies to be placed on their pizza, covered with cheese and baked.
People are weird as all get out. Subway has at least taught me that.”
“Roland, I Bet You Can’t Make Me A Sub That I Can’t Eat”
“When I was a stupid high school boy, my buddy Rob and I used to go to the same Subway at least a couple of times a week. There were two workers there, Mary and Roland, and whenever they transferred, we’d follow them to some other Subway, because they were nice to us and sometimes gave us deals.
One day I went in there and said, ‘Roland, I bet you can’t make me a sub that I can’t eat.’
Roland goes in the back and comes back with two big slabs of processed turkey. The turkey is all sliced up when you order a regular sub. This was not sliced. It was just a dang brick of meat about an inch and a half thick.
He loaded it up with all the regular toppings, no screaming hot sauce or anything, and said, there you go.
Stupid high school boy me thought this fool didn’t know who he was dealing with. I asked for inedible, and he gave me extra meat! Ten minutes and this thing was down the belly hatch.
But a strange thing happens when you have to chew large portions of processed meat for a long time: you realize why they slice it up like that. It’s because it’s full of big disgusting chunks of gristle, blobs of fat, probably a beak or two, whatever made it into the turkey blender before it was pressed into a can.
I can’t remember whether I puked. Stupid high school boys puke a lot. But I do remember that I didn’t even finish six inches of that crap. God bless Roland, wherever he ended up, not only did he win the bet, he made a sandwich that still haunts my dreams 25 years later.”
The Customer’s Always Right?
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“Dude comes in like he’s never been to a subway before, which that’s ok, I’m ready to help, but he also acts like he has never had nor heard of a sandwich before. He gets the honey oat foot long, and that is where the logic stops. This joker asks what’s good, and I tell him that I like the meatball marinara. He gets that (with extra marinara mind you), and before I can even ask him about his cheese choice, he points to the tuna and asks ‘eww, what’s that?’ I tell him what it is; he takes a good minute to think, and then he’s like ‘Ok, I’ll get that too.’ I pause for a second trying to process what he is asking me. Let me tell you I take the title ‘sandwich artist’ seriously, and I did not feel like an artist while spreading pasty tuna on to a marinara soaked honey oat loaf. I felt dirty.
So to follow this nutball’s train of logic, he has me extra toast it without cheese, take it out, and he says two words that shook me to my core. ‘Honey mustard.’ I am an honest man; I like to think. A good man if I’m generous, but I cannot think that any god wouldn’t make me suffer for helping craft this abomination. I squeeze the bottle and give him three thick lines of that tangy god sauce. He says ‘more.’ I give him more. I close it with an audible squelch emitting from the sub, I wrap it up, and when I look up to accept his money, I see his face. I see the excitement of a child about to go on a roller coaster for the first time, the guy is giddy, practically electrified with glee. I give him his foot-long effigy to sin incarnate, he leaves the store, and I go in the back to slice bell peppers and try to forget.”
On These “Special” Days He Couldn’t Believe Anyone Would Order From Here
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“Never really had any crazy disgusting sandwiches. I worked overnights at a 24-hour store, so I would have stoner sandwiches (double meat, all veggies, extra mayo and chipotle sauce), but never saw anything I wouldn’t eat (except tuna with extra mayo and lettuce, then toasted, in that order, but I understand).
HOWEVER… I have to shout out to anyone who ordered and ate any sandwich on grease-trap cleaning day.
I had worked there for several months and could smell it before getting to the block I was going to. At this point, the most I had heard about grease-trap cleaning was when I got in and had to ask what a grease-trap was. For Subway, it’s the container under the sink in the floor where all the congealed sauces and small veggie pieces collected if they made it down the drain. The smell. Dear god the smell. If you haven’t experienced it before, you really should. It did not come out of my clothes until a few washes.
Back to the sandwiches. I have to give the most disgusting award to anyone who got a sandwich that day (and a few days afterward). There is absolutely no way that smell didn’t seep into every veggie and loaf of bread in that store until it was restocked.
0/10 would not work that day again
3/10 would work that day again with rice.”
Someone Give Him A Husband-Of-The-Year Award
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“I haven’t worked at Subway in years, but my absolute favorite was this man who came in one night and asked for a feast. He wanted two of them. I said, ‘Ok, what else do you want on it?’ He asked if he could get more meat. I told him he could get as much as he was willing to buy. So he asked for everything. ALL OF IT. 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. Twice. I’m talking tuna on top of meatballs on top of chicken and Philly steak and cold cut, etc. Even the repeat ones, like chicken-bacon-ranch and buffalo chicken or steak and the bigger steak I can’t remember the name.
We had two microwaves and two toasters, and I had them both working to make this dude’s subs. It took almost 40 minutes just to construct these monstrosities. Now, two things. 1. It’s cheaper to get ‘double meat’ than it is to get another sandwich so maybe this dude is doing that and has his bread at home. Nope. This crap was all mushed together like some EpicMealTime mess. 2. Maybe he was blazed and a jerk kid? Nope.
He was a 500-pound 60-year-old black guy with a cane who said they were for his wife, she eats ONE A DAY and that he came to us since other Subway’s stopped making them for him. It took our manager almost half an hour to figure out how to charge him for it since extra portions of different meats cost different prices and it trying to put it regularly maxed out the system. To top it all off, I crap you not; he wanted every veggie. Then he asked for extra portions of those veggies. It got insane very fast. He ended up paying some 75 dollars for technically two sandwiches.”
This Customer Was Keeping Count Of His Bizarre Order
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“Meatball marinara with precisely 37 olives.
No more.
No less.
He also wanted the cheese to be spread out on the ends of the sub. I thought it was weird so I asked him, and he said it was like an appetizer and a dessert for his lunch. I figured I wasn’t getting paid enough to argue so put all his olives on and went on my break.
Not too long ago, I was talking to my manager about the guy. He told me that this guy had sat there, taking each olive out and counting them on a little scorecard. The guy had come up to my manager and apparently, he said with the sternest look on his face ‘I counted 36 olives here. I want a refund.’ Of course, I didn’t hear any of this since I was on my break. My manager then goes to the till and asks him for the receipt and how much the sub cost.”
Jalapenos On Jalapenos
“I had a guy in the other week who asked for ‘plenty of jalapenos.’
I of course obliged and put what I deemed ‘plenty’ on there. He asked me to keep going. So I did. He asked again, and again, and again. Eventually, there was a pile of them bigger than people usually get when they ask for extra lettuce. I had had to warn him I was going to have to charge him extra because he had got nearly half a container on this one meatball sub.
Eventually, the salad (literally just the jalapenos) was complete, and we moved onto sauce. Seeing that this gent obviously preferred the spicy things in life, I recommended the hot chili sauce. His response ‘Oooo no thanks. I had that before. Far too spicy. Just smother it in mayo to cool it down a little please.’
Still, it kept my night shift interesting for a while!”
She Just Ordered Weird Things Wherever She Went
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“There’s a couple of weird orders that I can remember. First I had a lady that looked like New York from ‘Flava of Love.’ She wanted me to cut the bread all the way through as opposed to the weird side cut we’re supposed to do. Then wanted the bottom slice covered in cheese, and then just that toasted. Then have lettuce covering the whole thing, then dressing, meat, and the rest of the veggies in that order. Then, replace the top and toast again. As far as sandwich construction goes, I understand it, but I had to go from one end of the line to the other and back again which is a hassle when it’s busy.
The second was another mall employee. She was about five foot nothing and weighed 90 pounds in the rain. She always got a six-inch sub, two slices of ham (normal is four) no cheese or veg, but she wanted what seemed like half the bottle of mayo. I learned her coffee order from the not-Starbucks across the way, and it was a small black with a little milk and ten sugars. I wasn’t surprised when I found that out.”
