After just two years, the Subway sandwich shop situated inside the under-construction 1 World Trade Center has closed. According to Crain's, even though the lofty location had disappointing sales, "It wasn't financial losses that shuttered the restaurant known for its $5 foot-long subs. The problem was strictly one of logistics. By design, 1 World Trade narrows as it rises, and the restaurant, which needs to be on a top floor to be near the workers, simply ran out of room as construction continued to the building's current 90th floor high point."
The sandwich shop was picked to appeal to the 250 iron workers at the site, so they wouldn't have to waste time by going down to street level (there are limited elevators)—there's only 30 minutes for lunch, but a round-trip to street level could add another hour to the lunch time. Crain's has more details:
Still, many iron workers opted to take the long ride. That meant that the restaurant, which needed to sell about 200 meals a day just to break even, only ever doled out about 90. The Subway was run by a franchise operator and DCM [a steel erector company] had agreed to eat any losses it incurred. In its relatively brief life, the restaurant wound up running up a bill of about $180,000 for DCM, on top of the $500,000 it cost to construct it.
DCM's Bill Grutta says it was worth it, "It means we saved 90 rides on the hoist a day," but offered an opinion about the fare: "The Subway food is fine. But these guys like something off the grill. They like a greasy steak sandwich or a greasy hamburger with fries." Here's a look inside the Subway at the WTC:
DCM also revealed that they are "considering hoisting the restaurant to the tower's roof when the building tops off at 105 stories, so the iron workers will have somewhere to eat while they are installing its antenna." Sounds like they are going for something with a grill.
