Jersey Mike’s Last Chance
And what really matters in a sandwich (it may be more than taste)
A friend texted me saying he was craving the “Cancro” sandwich. Up until a few months ago I’d have had no idea what that meant, but it was a few months ago that I set out to beshame (or redeem, should they seize the opportunity) the sandwich chain Jersey Mike’s, and now ‘Cancro’ — a signature sandwich named after the chain’s founder and CEO — is a word that takes up as much space in my brain as any other word, including all words I know with any significance at all. Whereas I do believe one shouldn’t be ashamed of their knowledge, I’d happily trade my knowledge of the name of a sandwich I’ve never eaten for, let’s say, anything else.
I’ve eaten Jersey Mike’s (JM’s) three times in my life, though it is also possible it has only been twice and I’m mistakenly thinking of another place in the second instance. Before I’d ever tasted one of their subs I’d made up my mind, because my brain, for all its many faults and shortcomings, is still capable of creating habits; it just so happens that the habits I create are seldom beneficial or constructive in and of themselves, but rather they are products of arbitrary stubbornness. My brain can create habits and my brain can be tricked, if there is any difference between the two.
I am, I’m now verbalizing for the first time, a canonical bullshitter, which, before you even think it, is not the same as a liar. It’s very different. I am a bullshitter, yes, because life is absurd and bullshit in the right context can be very funny (to and for me only, sometimes, but again life is absurd and it’s important that the one voice in your head is able to amuse, when called upon). I am not a bullshitter exclusively, as I am also a very sincere if sort of repressed person, but in certain arenas I love the bullshit.
Many of these arenas, it should be noted, are empty, because bullshit annoys people and because what I have to offer is the preferred taste of a dismally select few. And because I am in many ways performing for myself, I can appreciate the narrative arcs, and I can recognize the callbacks, and I can be fooled into mixing up if the voice in my head is on entertainment duty or if it is on regular-being-a-normal-person duty. Looking back can be very tricky: am I watching life as it happened or am I watching my own folly?
All this to say, when I do sprinkle in a joke for myself I do so knowing it is a joke, trying to add flavor to the white bread that is time. When I sprinkle anything, really, I usually know that I’m actively sprinkling. The stupid inside jokes are not involuntary. But in hindsight, having sprinkled so much bullshit and having eaten so much bread, I can’t always tell what came from where.
Very much the way rumors spread, or how the game ‘telephone’ works, or misinformation, or disinformation, I will sometimes bullshit things into reality — joke things into reality, usually my reality, but sometimes just reality at large. Again, I’m narrating two stories at once, and the narrators’ voices are the exact same and the stories are mostly the same, one just being a little more fun for me.
I say I am a canonical bullshitter (a few paragraphs above, if you’d forgotten) because I get great joy out of the build-up of meaningless minutiae that gets packaged as ‘interesting’ rather than ‘inane’ (when it is most certainly inane, if not both), and when telling my own internal story, or internally telling any story, or joking around with whomever, I enjoy consistencies that only time and repetition can provide. I like the ever-growing canon in the background to fill up with nonsense. This is crucial in understanding me. The nonsense doesn’t have to be patently true or false, and it doesn’t necessarily need to be nonsense — not being able to tell is part of the fun (sorry). The nonsense lasting and becoming embedded in the sense is part of the fun (again, sorry).
Obviously there are countless true stories and memories, (i.e. in fifth grade I sang “Play that Funky Music White Boy” for my class; in 2021 I sold dog clothes to Paris Hilton, etc.) but there are also opinions and ideas that have become canon (i.e. I imagine Billie Eilish has terrible manners, or whenever an American pronounces the city “Toronto” I will tell them that they are saying it wrong, because I enjoy how Toronto natives say it, which uses more of a “Ch” than a “T” and is more condensed into two syllables…like “Trah-no” sort of). Call me a broken record, call me a hackneyed reactionist, but I have reflexive responses to some situations because I enjoy irrelevant canon sneaking into conversation uninvited (and yes, part of the canon is that I sometimes bring up the existence of the canon). You say “Toronto” and I can’t help myself.
(Creatively this has been my M.O. as well. During my first stint as an amateur comedian I’d tell stories of my daughter who didn’t exist, of celebrity encounters that never happened, of people, places, and things that could have been real but were not, with the joke not at all being that the things were made up. I have created multiple podcasts suggesting truths about myself that are not true. These can be found [here] and [here], and depending on when you read this and when I update the link situation [here — projected release: autumn 2022]! The fictionalized version of myself looks and sounds a hell of a lot like myself.)
Now, I know for a fact that I sang that song in fifth grade but I don’t know for a fact that Billie Eilish is rude; however, they both come from the same well of bullshit, so while I once knew an event was happening and I once knew I was forming a flimsy opinion, I now have a harder time remembering the inception of either, and the memories and ideas are removed and replaced by memories of memories and ideas. Say it enough and it sticks. Throw enough shit at the wall and eventually you’ll forget you even threw the shit. Hey, how did that shit get there? That’s kind of gross, right? Someone should clean that up.
And so, some years ago, I tricked my own brain into thinking Jersey Mike’s is a terrible sandwich chain. I was first aware of JM’s around 2008 or 2009, and I think I’d dismissed it as not worth my time. I lived centrally in a city — and an advanced, diverse one at that — and all of the JM’s that I knew were out in the sticks, where culture had yet to find its way. In my experience (and take whatever offense you feel is due), leaving my multicultural home and venturing into the suburbs meant my meals would be bland chains, and if not chains then bland independent restaurants run by bland people who could never cook up a meal flavorful enough for the learned, metropolitan pallets of those I grew up around. People in Podunk, USA may be happy to eat your dry chicken or your shitty cookies, but my neighbors would run you out of town. I didn’t grow up with a Jersey Mike’s around me, presumably because they couldn’t hack it. (Did I grow up eating pretty bland food? I absolutely did, but not for lack of options.)
This stance was my passive opinion, but around 2018 a very boring person I sort of knew brought a bag of JM’s into the room I was occupying, and sat down to eat and talk and be boring and ruin my mood for the night.
“Mmmm, delicious!” she said, not exactly, but something like that. “I love Jersey Mike’s, it’s just the best!” I hadn’t asked and watching her eat infuriated me.
“Ah, but you are wrong,” I retorted, probably exactly. “You are wrong in so many ways, as I’ve been keeping track of in my knowing you and am always prepared to cite, and now you are wrong once again. Jersey Mike’s is not good. There are so many better places to get a sandwich.”
Was it reasonable of me to immediately disagree with this person’s opinion? No, but regardless I disagreed and felt correct. We were people with fundamentally different approaches to life, hers involving being sheltered and obnoxious, and with each passing second I felt more and more like I was sitting with her, eating the bad sandwich by her side, grimacing in her face, offering evidence in support of my case.
And it took very little time at all before I adopted this own stance permanently, freely telling people how I felt. It became canon. Whenever Jersey Mike’s has come up in conversation over the past few years I’ve volunteered that it’s garbage. Of course in the above example I am genuinely an asshole and my intentions were suspect, but in the following cases I was just playing to myself (while also baselessly agreeing with the joke, which is not the point and will be addressed later). It’s just one more bullet I carry with me when talking sandwich, and one I didn’t have to suffer through a bland sandwich to develop.
Because, of course, I do love a sandwich. And it is so very like me to speak at length about things I don’t actually care about (karaoke, shoes, etc.), but make no mistake that there are some things I do care about, or even know about, or both, and my authority on those things is even more absolute, as I’d have you believe. Everyone likes sandwiches, I know, but I really like sandwiches. I could say more about what qualifies me, but I don’t need to; the fact is I know good sandwiches. I’m not saying you don’t, only that I do more. (Frankly, Judaism is a major player here, as the deli is our thing, and I have no problem playing the Jew card. I will remain silent on other stereotypes and ethnic food trends, but use your imagination to come up with some other examples and realize that a Jew saying he knows about sandwiches and loves sandwiches and has had a lot of sandwiches makes sense.)
(When I was younger I had a dream of opening up a dual sandwich shop and bookstore, after my baseball career. I’m now afraid of getting hit by a baseball and can hardly read, but my love for the sandwich remains. I have probably learned no more about sandwiches since then, but my rhetoric and dickishness have grown, so it doesn’t matter.)
And yes, I do like a chain restaurant and hold no bias against a restaurant for being a chain. I’ve definitely eaten at more chains than independent restaurants in my life. I sometimes prefer it quick and easy and mass-produced. In fact, I love fast food so much that I’ve chosen it as one of the many ways I’m actively killing myself. But Jersey Mike’s is not good, I’d decided blindly, and that’s that.
Believe me, it crossed my mind to create a definitive ranking of sandwich chains to further hammer in my point. I wanted to, and still do want to, but I didn’t have the means (focus, money) or the will (will) to do so. I love a Schlotzky’s (regional), I enjoy a Jimmy John’s, I have opinions on Subway along with a long history, and maybe one day I’ll offer the details on the rest of the sandwich-scape. **I will probably do so in this piece, if not as thoroughly as I’d like (which would be longer and more thorough than you’d like).
But no sandwich has brought out such certainty in me without having eaten it than Jersey Mike’s, and to me that’s a fun fact to dive into.
As promised, some actual experience.
In 2019 I had my first sandwich from Jersey Mike’s (some sort of turkey sandwich, I think) and all I remember is a profound lack of flavor. In mid-2021 I had my second sandwich from Jersey Mike’s (maybe a Philly cheesesteak-type thing?) and it was exceptionally bad. In late-2021…
Actually, there was some inspiration for the 2019 visit. No, not the girl I’d shamed the previous year — I’d made my case to her and moved on. The podcast Doughboys, which features two larger white men who review chain restaurants, did a Jersey Mike’s episode featuring Drew Tarver, who I’m a fan of, in 2017, and it took me two years to get to it but I finally did. I’d recently moved and was living quite close to a JM’s, and I like Drew Tarver, so it seemed like the right time. Doughboys, for what it’s worth, is a fine resource for more straightforward food reviews that aren’t, you know, about me.
Drew Tarver is such a funny guy, big fan, love seeing him, etc., but he didn’t do JM’s a massive favor with his Doughboys appearance. In it he describes how he gets a small turkey sandwich on wheat with provolone done ‘Mike’s way’ with no tomatoes (‘Mike’s way’ is the option to add onions, lettuce, tomatoes, olive oil blend, red wine vinegar and spices…to add generic flavors and wetness). Drew also gets a cookie and alternates bites between sandwich and cookie. It all feels very childish and bland. Again, no disrespect to Drew, big fan.
So that provides even more reason for me to think, ‘oh, this is where a child would go to get a sandwich.’ They might as well offer a plain turkey and mayo sandwich with the crust cut off (turkey and mayo can be a great combo in some instances!) as their signature meal. The podcast painted the picture of a very blah sandwich, which of course made me giddy.
As I said, I’ve been liberal with my Jersey Mike’s opinion publicly, even in a way that I often am not with causes I actually care about. It’s just pointless enough that I can slander the Jersey Mike’s name with abandon. Usually the people who talk to me know more-or-less how I operate (I truly fucking hope) and me calling a sandwich chain garbage falls within the context of my existence. (Important to note that I don’t bring things up on my own and if I’m giving a sandwich opinion it’s because I have been provoked.) But some people — those less privy — take my opinions personally and actually think I care about some of the hard opinions I espouse.
Take a sister-in-law of mine, who happened to be in the backseat of the car I was driving (didn’t happen to be — I was driving her and others and she was part of the conversation…any ‘happens to be’ play you ever hear was likely lifted from a 20th century George Carlin routine. Unsure who he lifted it from though…) while I said something like “Jersey Mike’s is truly the worst sandwich you can get.” She then said, “I actually like Jersey Mike’s,” with a tinge of shame. Shit, that actually made me feel kind of bad. I don’t attack random people for their opinions, I attack people I don’t like for their opinions, and for being who they are, and I jokingly attack my friends, who either know better than to engage (which bothers me) or know I care about them and that when I say something like ‘I hate x sandwich place’ I do not mean the word hate and probably don’t really care that much. Am I going to have to explain this whole situation to her? (I’ll send her a link to this when it’s done, maybe it’ll clear things up.)
Thinking about it, I’m not sure how much good explaining the context to her will do. There are some to whom this will never make sense, and I won’t fight that. All I can do (as I will not change my personality) is be aware of my surroundings, be considerate to others, and have enough support for my arguments so as not to seem completely unreasonable. It is perfectly fine for me to hate Jersey Mike’s, and it is perfectly fine for me to say so, but perpetuating an opinion unfairly created doesn’t seem right. It is also perfectly fine for me to reverse engineer fairness in hopes of being able to come back with the same opinion even more fervently, as long as it’s actually, by some definition, fair.
So here we are. Remember the Cancro at the top of the piece? No? It’s a sandwich at Jersey Mike’s. Remember how I said I’ve eaten there three times but only listed two? No? Well I did do that. After a long, odd look in the mirror I decided I needed to give JM’s another chance. I needed to offer an even-handed opportunity for them to prove they’re not the worst sandwich around. And since that doesn’t really matter on its own, I needed there to be stakes.
If you’re reading, Jersey Mike’s executive, I will repeat that I am both fair and merciful, and despite the trash I’ve talked I couldn’t write you off completely just yet. So in the doldrums of December 2021, in need of a project and a spark, without the means or the will to create a comprehensive sandwich ranking, desperate as usual to prove myself right, grasping at the cloud of relevance I cannot see but assume is somewhere above me, I offered you one last chance.
I woke up on the day of JERSEY MIKE’S LAST CHANCE feeling calm. I wasn’t working that day, I had some errands to run and was in no particular rush. It was raining. I felt normal.
My final destination would be my apartment so I asked my roommate if he wanted a sandwich. He did. (Do inquire about the time I did a McDonald’s challenge with another friend for some loosely-related context.) I figured an extra opinion couldn’t hurt.
I laid out the ground rules to myself in the car on the way to JM’s. I would eat one sandwich. If it did not please me then I would never return. If it pleased me, maybe I would. Nosebleed stakes, these.
IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: I intended to go home, eat the sandwich, write about the sandwich, and be done with it. I went home, ate the sandwich, tried to write about the sandwich, and took a nap. I then re-visited the idea in February, referencing pictures of the experience to jog my memory. I wrote a little. I write now in May, referencing the same pictures. I am a full season removed from the day, but don’t for a second think I don’t remember what I need to remember. I took scant notes, not of the sandwich itself but of how it made me feel.
As I was saying, it was raining in Los Angeles. You didn’t think it could, but girl, don’t they warn ya? It pours there. I love rain. I’d missed it. And it wasn’t really pouring, it was raining just the right amount. It made my drive much more enjoyable. I pulled into the parking garage that JM’s shares with a Chase and a Jamba Juice and probably a chiropractor or something. I exited my car and immediately saw the most inauspicious sign imaginable.
I enter the storefront, masked. It is clean, sterile, and smells the way I’d expect it to. I am greeted by someone. The staff does not seem young. There is one other patron. I’d gone in unprepared so I study the menu and tell the old help I will be a minute. They are polite and I remember someone ringing a bell but I don’t remember what for.
I check to see if my roommate has responded to me, which he has. He wants the Cancro, and while I don’t know what that means I see it on the menu. I sneak a picture of their deli fridge display thing.
I settle on the “Original Italian” despite not being sure if that’s what I really wanted. It advertises “provolone, ham, prosciuttini, cappacuolo, salami, and pepperoni.” This feels like a fair litmus test to me. It feels like a standard-ish Italian sub with the ingredients that I hope they’d have quality versions of. I didn’t want something too overboard or specialized and I didn’t want something too basic. I didn’t want a hot sandwich because I felt that would offer an unfair edge as the hot sandwich is king, plus I wasn’t sure how long it would be before I’d be eating it. I wanted, I guess, something original and Italian? I don’t know, I like meat and that’s what I ordered.
Of course I ordered it ‘Mike’s Way.’ It’s the one customization option they take pride and ownership in/of so it never crossed my mind not to do this. Reminder, this option adds onions, lettuce, tomatoes, olive oil blend, red wine vinegar and spices. These are things you’d, I guess, want on a sandwich, and it does feel odd to me that they’re all bundled together in a suggestion, as if to say, “all of those things that will make the sandwich better…we recommend them.” Interesting tactic.
The sandwiches were prepared quickly in front of me. The process was sloppy. They have that shredded lettuce that flies everywhere and all the oils and vinegars made it look like I was in for a potential nuru situation, which I wouldn’t have minded.
I paid for the sandwiches. The Cancro (which has “all natural oven roasted top rounds and provolone, perfectly complemented with a layer of pepperoni” and was also ordered Mike’s Way) cost $.50 more than mine and is also the only sandwich on the menu with editorialized ingredients. My sandwich had nothing “perfectly complemented” within it. This didn’t seem fair. I tipped $4.02.
I was bid farewell as I left. I bid it back and drove home, where my roommate was either asleep or not present. I took a seat by a window I hadn’t sat by once in my two years in the apartment — one where I could be closer to the rain and the natural light (not a very well-lit apartment and I wanted the pictures I’d be taking to be lit by the sky, or wherever the outside light comes from). I put the Cancro in the fridge, I pulled a lactaid pill from my pocket, and I went to work.
My initial observation was that the Cancro is bigger than the Original Italian. This is fine and I didn’t need to distract myself with the Cancro. I opened mine and it looked a little sloppy. Sloppy is not bad in and of itself and it didn’t affect my opinion. What did affect it, though, was the wetness of the sandwich, which was severe. Obviously ‘Mike’s way’ dictates a degree of wetness, and like slop wetness is not bad in and of itself, but this was borderline-soggy. It also looked a little bland, which might have just been the attitude I was entering with. But maybe not. The ham and provolone looked light and thin. The lettuce looked like lettuce and the tomatoes were water-logged.
One half of the sandwich, as you can see, had done a fair bit of sliding — perhaps a function of wetness — forcing me to have to restructure a little. It’s ok. It’s not a big deal. I’ll just eat the thing.
I vividly remember taking my first bite and thinking: wet. Not bad, not good, but wet. A few more bites now and thinking: fine. To the end of one half, where the juices and wetness have accumulated and the thought is: wet.
Now like I said above, I like meat. I like the smell of meat, I like the flavor…it doesn’t have to be great meat for me to usually be happy to eat it. The fact that JM’s was able to offer me this much meat was a positive, but the prevailing taste was just wet, slightly seasoned meat. With bread. The bread was ok.
Anyway, I started the other half and felt…I guess the same? It was certainly not gross. I was happy to have a sandwich in front of me to eat. I put down my phone so I could really focus. Yes, this was definitely a sandwich. It felt impersonal. It did not feel made with love or intent. It felt churned out. It tasted fine.
Then, in the height of anti-climax, I finished the sandwich, threw the paper away, washed my hands, and went to sit in a different chair. I was completely unchanged. The sandwich had done nothing. It’s ok for food to do nothing, but I’d been begging it to do something. I was ready for it to be outstanding, or for it to be awful, but it was neither. It was gone and it left nothing in its wake.
The third Jersey Mike’s sandwich I’d eaten was perfectly functional. It had all the ingredients I was promised. It had bread and meat and wetness. It tasted like whatever the definition of a sandwich would suggest. It was food and calories. Uninspired, I took a nap.
I don’t know exactly what I dreamt of but I know for a fact it wasn’t this sandwich. Nor was it any other sandwich. It was anything else. It had led me to anything else. As unremarkable as could be, this sandwich was and then was not.
I recently told a group of people that I haven’t been in a swimming pool since 2013. This is true and odd to know. I can now, with the same certainty and irrelevance, say that I have eaten at Jersey Mike’s three times in my life. It is canon and it is not bullshit, depending on how you define bullshit. To some it may be bullshit.
And I will not be returning to Jersey Mike’s. Not because the sandwiches are bad, but because they are worse than bad. They are detrimentally ordinary. They had as clear a chance as they could have to make me feel anything and they failed. My life is dispassionate enough. I was once an obsessive, passionate guy. I still am, sometimes, but not most of the time, and I hate that I’ve changed (I will survive and get used to it). I don’t need more dispassion in my life. I wanted a reaction. I wanted bullshit. Jersey Mike’s couldn’t even offer me that. They offered me a sandwich that I didn’t really like but didn’t hate. They somehow, in roughly 1,000 calories, neutralized my emotions. I wanted so bad for Jersey Mike’s to engage with me, to spark something, to tell me something I hadn’t heard before. But their silence told me all it needed to.
Somewhere above I say that I love sandwiches, and that may be a mischaracterization. I like sandwiches a lot, but I couldn’t love something that can leave me in such a furious ennui as the Jersey Mike’s Original Italian did. It is a sandwich that might have destroyed me had I let it. It, in its nothingness, made me question my values, my goals, and my identity. I say this not as an exaggeration but as a survivor’s testimony.
Joy can be so scarce and if you can find it you should snatch it (I routinely tell myself), but joy isn’t the only emotion that matters. Even the ones we avoid are important contrasts and counterweights and reminders: regret, anger, sadness and the like. They are lessons, all of them. We shouldn’t necessarily seek them out, but we shouldn’t fear them. They are human.
To feel nothing at all is something I fear far more than regret or anger or sadness. It is a waste of humanity. I, personally, have to remind myself that I am human and that being human is a wild, often unpleasant blessing, which we’ve all been given. As my friend Terence once wrote,
“Homo sum; humani nil a me alienum puto” — “I am a human being; I consider nothing human alien to me.”
I don’t need a spacer between myself and humanity, between myself and disgust or jealousy. I don’t need a sandwich to strip from me what I feel and what I am. Because I am many things, but above all, I just am. And Jersey Mike’s made me feel like I am not. That is nothing I will tolerate.
It’s been several months since my JM’s trip, which, let’s not forget, fed more than just me. A text from the following day:
“That omicroncro special yesterday was good!” (Omicron was on the rise and language is a myth and my roommate was capable of being goofy.)
“o rly?” I said for the first and last time in my life.
“I dont think I would ever choose it, but if someone was like hey I’m going my treat I’d be like Yeah! Get me that cancro!”
A text from March 17, 2022:
“They’re talking about the Cancro special at jersey mikes on doughboys and now I wanna eat one again!”…”Cancro special is bae.”
To which I replied, “God damnit, the whole point of the piece was that I’d never go there again but now I want this cancro,”
A text from April 2, 2022:
“My boss offered me lunch for my birthday (it’s my birthday today you have to say nice things about me) and I said ‘get me that cancro special!’”
I thought maybe this wasn’t true. “Did you actually request the cancro? You’re building up a presence in this sandwich piece i’ve barely sort of written.”
“I requested and received the cancro and it was good. You can quote me on that in your piece”
And here I am, quoting him in my piece. Perhaps I ordered the wrong sandwich. Perhaps we all just have different taste. Perhaps we have different things to live for. My friend and former roommate Andrew is a very good person who, to his credit, wasn’t left existentially abused by Jersey Mike’s, at least in ways he has expressed to me. I’m glad he enjoyed his sandwich and am glad he’s found a bit of humanity to make him smile.
I won’t be trying the Cancro. I don’t want to give my time and money and energy to anyone or anything capable of leaving me so dispirited. Luckily I don’t have to, and I also don’t have to talk shit about the place because someone whose taste I trust genuinely enjoys it. But I will. I will continue to talk shit about Jersey Mike’s. I will disparage it every chance I get (when relevant) because on the other side of this whole ordeal, I got exactly the bullshit I wanted — not that I was looking for and not that I knew I wanted, but absolutely the right bullshit for me.
As you can see I’ve decided not to include a further sandwich shop ranking or stories of my history with Subway or anything like that. This piece ended up being more about the human spirit (mine, at least) and the peculiar path my disdain for Jersey Mike’s has taken, and to dilute that with other, half-hearted sandwich reviews would be ungainly and unfair. One day I will provide those reviews separately, maybe, but not today. Today I just want to stress the fact that Jersey Mike’s is absolutely the worst sandwich chain and I will never give them another cent and I am proud to be who I am and blah blah blah.
And if you choose to play along at home, next time you’re talking to someone about Jersey Mike’s, or about sandwich chains, you can say, “I know someone who didn’t like Jersey Mike’s, realized that wasn’t fair to say, tried it again and was left rendered emotionally comatose (nothing else was happening in his life at the time to influence this!), and then wrote way too much about it,” and they’ll probably acknowledge that you said what you said but not really want to continue down that path so they’ll move on but at least you’ll have said it at the appropriate moment, and now you’re closer to understanding how I feel all the time.
