The boy who wanted to be a doctor and ended up having more restaurants than McDonald's

On Barcelona's Rambla, a little further down from the Canaletes fountain, there's a scent. It's the same smell that wafts through Pelai street, near Plaça Universitat; close to Casa Batlló, and inside the Diagonal Mar shopping center. It's a sweet, toasted, and slightly spicy aroma, capable of whetting some pedestrians' appetites, but also making others wrinkle their noses. Where does it come from? You just need to sweep your gaze across the landscape to find the answer: it escapes from the establishments that the North American fast-food chain Subway has spread throughout the city. In Catalonia, it only has twelve: all in Barcelona except for one in Lloret de Mar. However, worldwide, the company accumulates staggering figures: around 40,000 restaurants in over 100 countries, making it one of the major restaurant franchises.For almost six decades, Subway was a business controlled by the families of its two founders, Fred DeLuca and Peter Buck. But in 2023, the chain passed into the hands of the North American fund Roark Capital, specializing in restaurant franchises. Subway had grown so much that, in some markets, its own model was beginning to show signs of exhaustion: locations too close to each other, tensions with franchisees, and increasingly strong competition from newer, smaller chains with a more current image. The brand, which had surpassed McDonald's in number of restaurants, needed to become desirable again. Subway has placed the Iberian market in the hands of Grupo Vierci with the aim of opening around 400 restaurants in Spain in the next ten years.But who were Fred DeLuca and Peter Buck? How did they manage to build a chain with tens of thousands of restaurants around the world? To find the answer, we need to travel back to the summer of 1965, in Bridgeport, Connecticut, United States. A doctor and a nuclear physicist

Fred DeLuca had just graduated from high school and had a clear goal: to study medicine. The problem was that he didn't have the money to pay for university. He worked in a hardware store, where he earned $1.25 an hour, but that salary wasn't enough to pay for his degree. A little discouraged, he decided to ask for advice from Peter Buck, an old family friend. Buck was a doctor in nuclear physics.The answer he gave him was unexpected: he proposed opening a submarine sandwich shop, a type of long sandwich very popular in the northeastern United States. Buck gave him $1,000 and became his partner. The first location opened that same August in Bridgeport, under the name Pete's Super Submarines, a tribute to the lender and the sandwiches they sold. The adventure, at first, did not seem destined to make history: it was a small business, thought especially so that DeLuca could pay his tuition.But the young man learned quickly. He understood that, in that sector, it wasn't enough to just make sandwiches: you had to choose good locations, keep costs low, offer a consistent product, and serve it quickly. He also discovered the value of an idea that would eventually define the brand: letting the customer see the ingredients and choose how they wanted their sandwich. In a market dominated by hamburgers, fried chicken, and fixed menus, that counter full of breads, cheeses, vegetables, and sauces was a new concept. A franchise too big

DeLuca and Buck's initial plan was to open 32 restaurants in ten years. By the mid-seventies, however, they had only launched sixteen, all in Connecticut. To grow faster, they turned to franchising, a formula they had previously seen as something reserved for large companies. Starting in 1974, Subway began to multiply with new franchisees. Over the following decades, the chain grew rapidly, with the promise of offering a fresher, more customizable alternative to traditional fast food. For a time, it even surpassed McDonald's in the number of restaurants. But the same model that had made it a giant also ended up creating problems for them. After DeLuca's death in 2015 and Buck's in 2021, Subway remained in the hands of the founding families until, in 2023, Roark Capital took control to relaunch the brand.