Subway moves to eliminate "Do you want toasted?"

After suffering slightly with the Jared incident, which they were not responsible for, but probably should have done a little better investigation into before making him a spokes person. Subway unveils ‘Fresh Forward’ redesign in order to improve business as restaurants across the nation suffer from the ongoing downturn. Remodeling to improve business isn't anything new, as Wendy's and McDonald's have started their programs to spruce up their images over a year ago. Wendy's and McDonald's have town down buildings and replaced them with new ones, but I don't see Subway doing this as they are mostly in strip malls and not stand alone locations.

Part of the Subway redesign is to add self-service ordering kiosks. And again, this isn't a new thing. I actually lived in a town that implemented one of the first McCafe's and had the first self-ordering kiosks over a decade ago.

[Source : National Restaurant News ]

The writing was on the wall, that in order to improve customer service, the service had to move to the customer. The Fight for $15 was the most ill planned protest in recent history. But, I guess those expecting to make a career off of minimum wage, wouldn't know that they were fighting against themselves in the first place.

Anyway, I think the kiosks are only half the solution for places like Subway. There is a gas station chain called Sheetz, that has had order-at-the-pump kiosks for years. It does seem that they have replaced them with kiosks in the store, since there must have been some sort of disconnect between the ordering, paying and pick-up. Sheetz has expanded their order to an on-line option, which basically uses the same screens as their store kiosks. The ordering allows you do build your own item down to the dozen sauces available. The biggest difference between Subway and Sheetz is that Sheetz makes everything from drinks to pizzas on their menu. Subway, while they have a couple types of breads, only makes sandwiches.

So, back to Subway. What they really need to do is automate the entire system. Sorry minimum wage workers. If you can order a submarine sandwich on the kiosk and say exactly what you want, it shouldn't be very difficult for a robot to pull a fresh bread roll, slice it the correct way, layer the meat and cheese and then add the toppings. Not only could it quickly slice fresh vegetables to put on the sandwich, it could also place the right amount of spread, sauce or oil. In fact, if there was a proven way to put the oil and vinegar on at a certain time in the sandwich making process, then the robot could be programmed to do that as well. And of course, if you selected it, your submarine sandwich could be toasted as well.

I know, I know... death of jobs!! Well, I only support it for such jobs that continually paying higher and higher wages will only make it worse for the consumer and the job seekers. At some point, the increased wage and thus the increased cost of the product will out weigh the desire by the customer to do it themselves. When this is reached, it won't matter what the minimum wage is for the job, it will be gone as well as the customers.

There are only two paths ahead. Remove the minimum wage demand or embrace automation.

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