Restaurant Secrets You Didn't Know About Jimmy John's

Jimmy John's started as one small sandwich shop in Illinois more than 40 years ago, and it's grown into an international phenomenon with over 2,700 locations. Enthusiastic fans love the company's food both for its quality and its affordability, and the company tries to keep its customers happy by introducing new items while keeping as many old favorites on the menu as possible.

Despite the massive number of locations, Jimmy John's is in only 43 states. It's also not in every city in those states. To people who may have just moved to an area where the chain exists, or those who live in a location the chain has just moved into, the company may seem like just another sub sandwich shop. But it's got a long history with a very interesting beginning, and so many dedicated fans can't be wrong. Here are some restaurant secrets you didn't know about Jimmy John's.

If you've ever wondered if the employees at your favorite fast food place have discussed your orders, well, chances are that yeah, they have. If you're a regular at Jimmy John's, the staff may have memorized what you usually get, and you probably have a nickname. For those of you who like to order the same thing, it's a matter of speed. If your order is the same whenever you show up, the crew will remember who you are and what your order is, and it's faster to tell other workers that X-Cheese Guy is here rather than repeating the entire order. Don't worry, the staff won't call you by your nickname to your face or in front of other customers.

This practice isn't limited to Jimmy John's. Servers from many restaurants have chimed in online to discuss customer nicknames. The names could be based on something you said you liked, or based on a difference between you and another customer. One server claimed online that they had two regular customers with the same first name, but only one liked to eat inside the restaurant. That became the basis for the customer's nickname. If you're worried about what your nickname might be, just try to be a good customer. If you're annoying, you will get an annoying nickname, and everyone will remember why. The impression you leave is what the staff will remember when nicknaming you.

Jimmy John's sandwiches are the main attraction at its stores, but many customers are fans of the sides, especially the pickles and peppers that come with many of the sandwiches. Of course, the company recognized an opportunity here, and now you can officially buy pickle buckets and pepper jars so that you can have those delicious flavors anytime you want.

The pickle buckets — large plastic containers with neatly arranged spears — are easier to find than the pepper jars as not every location has the peppers for sale. The pickle bucket is available for catering, too, but the pepper jar is not. In areas where you can get the pepper jar, be aware that there have been some changes. The peppers used to be a mix of cherry peppers (also known as pimento peppers) and jalapeno peppers, but lately, people have reported receiving jars containing only cherry peppers. Many say they still receive a mix of the two pepper types, though, so it's best to double-check with the store's staff about what's in the pepper jars for sale that day.

Fast food fans can become really dedicated to their favorite foods and flavors, and they can be surprisingly stubborn about the condiments they think are best. Among Jimmy John's fans, the controversial condiment happens to be mustard. It seems that no matter what type of mustard Jimmy John's uses, the company will be criticized. Dijon mustard or whole-grain mustard was used on sandwiches, and if someone wanted plain yellow mustard, they'd get a small packet along with the order. Of course, people complained about having to add yellow mustard themselves.

Then, in late 2023, the company did away with both Dijon and whole-grain mustard, and added yellow mustard back into the regular lineup. The company had studied how well each type of condiment was selling, and the Dijon and whole-grain mustards, it turns out, were only added to about 2% of orders. After testing different types of mustard at one location, the company found that most customers preferred yellow mustard. Of course, when the switch was made, fans of the other mustards became extremely vocal and upset. They blamed private equity, threatened to boycott the restaurant, told others to call customer service — the works. However, as of late 2024, yellow mustard still reigns supreme at the company.

At this point, a fast food restaurant without a secret menu is an anomaly, and as you can guess, Jimmy John's definitely has a few "secret" items that everyone knows about. The thing is, there are also some secret menu items that not everyone knows about, which means ordering off the secret menu at different locations can get you different results.

Some of the items are brand-approved and even dreamed up by the company. For example, in January 2024, the company created the BLAHS hack, which was a JJ BLT with avocado spread, hot peppers, and salami, minus tomatoes. (BLAHS stands for bacon, lettuce, avocado spread, hot peppers, and salami.) Others are much less official and more along the lines of heavily modifying your sandwich to meet your specific taste. Some may be manager jokes meant to tease workers, yet others are legendary secret menu items that you can supposedly get, such as the Noah's Ark, also known as the Dubbuhgutbustuh, which is a Gargantuan with even more meat.

While Jimmy John Liautaud's family had financial problems when he was growing up, he was able to attend a private academy for high school. Unfortunately, younger Jimmy felt like he didn't fit in, and the stress of his family's issues — not to mention undiagnosed dyslexia — led him to become the class troublemaker. That didn't spell future success in anyone's eyes, except for the dean of discipline at the school.

That dean, Jim Lyons, had also had a working-class childhood and knew what Liautaud was going through. Instead of kicking him out of the school, Lyons told the school that if they kicked Liautaud out, then Lyons would leave as well. Both stayed, and Lyons took Liautaud under his wing. Liautaud has said that it was Lyons' encouragement and understanding that helped him get through high school, and that Lyons' insistence that Liautaud could be successful finally made him believe that he could be someone. When Liautaud later donated money to the school for a new building, he insisted that Lyons' name be on the building.

In late 2024, Jimmy John's released the Picklewich, a sandwich that was just like the subs the company already offered, only between two halves of a giant pickle instead of bread. There was speculation that the chain was influenced by a viral sandwich that had spread across social media earlier in the year.

That might not have been the case, however. This pickled sandwich was known to the company at least five years earlier, when an employee posted a picture on Reddit of a Little John sandwich that used pickle halves instead of bread. One year later, a representative from Jimmy John's crossposted a series of photos from another subreddit, showing a few different sandwiches made with pickle halves, calling the sandwich a picklewich. People remembered the post in 2024, pointing out that the Picklewich was now "becoming reality."

Reviews of the Picklewich were mixed, with some customers absolutely loving the sandwich, and others thinking it was good to try once, but only once. One professional review noted that the pickle increased the salty flavor beyond what they could stand, and that the lack of bread meant that there was nothing else to balance out all that salt. The Picklewich was available only through November 14.

Jimmy John's started as a very small operation that made four specific sandwiches: the Turkey Tom, the Vito, the Totally Tuna, and the Pepe. These are the four that Jimmy Liautaud handed out as samples when trying to drum up business for his shop, and they're the four that got people hooked on the shop's food. They're also the four originals that are still on the menu at all locations and that are still made exactly the same way as they were, way back when.

The menu has since expanded to 18 sandwiches, but the original four remain among the more popular offerings. The sandwiches are made with ingredients like hand-sliced turkey and tuna salad made in-house. By the way, the Vito and the turkey sandwich were available in Picklewich form when the Picklewich was available, but other than the use of a pickle instead of bread, you would have gotten the same famous sandwiches that you'd been eating for years.

Your favorite restaurant chain being bought out by a private equity firm can sometimes be bad news. Many firms want to save money, and this often leads to chains lowering quality in order to do so. However, private equity firms can also be advantageous for the companies they buy, and they sure have been in the case of Jimmy John's. In 2007, private equity firm Weston Presidio bought a stake in the company, and in the nine or so years that Weston Presidio was involved, Jimmy John's expanded to five times the size it had been in 2007.

But that wasn't the end of private equity's involvement in the company. In 2016, Weston Presidio sold its stake to Roark Capital. In fact, Roark acquired a majority stake. Jimmy John Liautaud remained the chair of the company until 2019, when Roark sold its stake to Inspire Brands. Liautaud also sold his stake, stepped down from the chairman position, and instead took on an advisory role.

One of the keys to Jimmy John's success is the use of franchising. Instead of the company trying to manage all 2,700 or so stores, it began offering franchising deals fairly early on. The company now claims that 98% of its stores are franchises, which is a higher rate than even that of McDonald's, for which 95% of U.S. locations are franchises.

Any franchise risks failure — that's just a fact of running a business. However, opening a Jimmy John's franchise hasn't exactly been the worst risk for many people. When comparing franchise failure rates for different companies, Jimmy John's locations have tended to show up closer to the less risky end of the scale, and in 2018 the chain was the leading fast food startup in the midwestern states of Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, and Missouri. And while the brand did see more failed franchises and defaulted franchise loans during 2020, that was attributed to pandemic lockdowns and drops in business.

It's very common to find American restaurants outside the U.S., but Jimmy John's resisted expanding outside the country until January 2024, when it announced it had signed deals with two groups to help open up locations in Canada and Latin America. The very first international location opened in San Salvador, El Salvador, on September 12, 2024, and more locations are already planned for that country. The menu for the San Salvador location includes toasted sandwiches not served at other stores.

The company then went on to open a store in Seoul, South Korea, on October 24, 2024, and the first Canadian location opened in Toronto on November 19, 2024. The menu at the Canadian location is slightly smaller than that of the locations in the U.S. These two locations both offered opening deals with free sandwiches and drinks for a certain number of customers.

Any restaurant that wants a lot of business would do well to look at having a location in New York City, right? That sounds reasonable, but Jimmy John's avoided opening up a location in the Big Apple until 2022. The reasons given have been very practical, including the rent in the area simply being too high, and the fact that the city is already loaded with similar sandwich shops.

When the chain did finally open up a location in New York City, it stuck to its roots as a place to go for students. The first location was near the Pratt Institute, an art school in Brooklyn. Since then, the company has opened up two more locations in the city, both in Manhattan, and has stated that it was looking for more locations in the Northeast. The company already has a few other locations across the state of New York.

A widespread criticism of many restaurants is that they throw away unused food at the end of the day, leading to massive waste. The problem has become so bad in some cases that California just passed a law to require certain types of restaurants to donate leftover food. With Jimmy John's pledge to use very fresh bread for each sandwich, you'd think that bread waste would be an issue for the chain. But the company has long had a solution for dealing with any bread that isn't used for its sandwiches: It sells it — cheap.

Yes, most Jimmy John's will let you buy day-old bread, usually for about 50 cents a loaf. The price can vary at some locations, and the bread sells out quickly, so unless you can get there right when they open, you could miss out. Some locations also limit how many loaves one person can buy. It's best to go in assuming there won't be any available so you're not disappointed, but don't be surprised if you luck out and can grab a few loaves. Try freezing the bread to maintain its freshness for more than just a couple of days. Cutting the bread up first is a good idea unless you don't mind having to thaw an entire loaf at once when you just want a slice.