Subway Blueprint becomes the EMEA standard from January 2027
Kiosks, breakfast, coffee and an evening menu from 6pm: the chain's new format is meant to help it nearly double in the region in five years. The release gives no starting number and no cost.
Subway Blueprint, the restaurant format the sandwich chain presented in Amsterdam on 8 October, becomes the standard for every new restaurant and every remodel in Europe, the Middle East and Africa from 1 January 2027. The company says it wants to nearly double its footprint in the region within five years.
The release does not say how many restaurants that is. It gives no current count for EMEA, no target and no investment figure, and a footnote adds that the region, for this purpose, includes India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. The trade title Restaurant Online puts the goal at 10,000 restaurants, which would imply about 5,000 today. Worldwide, Subway counts more than 35,000, all owned and operated by franchisees.
Subway Blueprint covers three things: the shop, the hours it trades and the advertising, a campaign called Get Your Own Way that is already running. The first restaurants built to it opened this summer in the Netherlands and the UK. Subway's press picture shows one at Amsterdam's Amstel station, and the franchisees it quotes are in Amsterdam and in Walton-on-Thames, in Surrey.
A plan to nearly double with no starting number is a direction, not yet a target.
What Subway Blueprint changes in the shop
The counter stays. Next to it come self-order kiosks, a screen that shows when an order is ready and a marked collection point; orders also arrive through the app and delivery.
The second part is the clock. Mornings get a breakfast range and coffee made with 100% Arabica beans. A Grab & Go menu of meals ready to take away is meant for transport hubs. From 6pm, in a pilot running in the Netherlands under the name Subway After Dark, the lights turn warmer, the playlist and the staff uniforms change and the menu boards switch to mac 'n' cheese, footlong pizzas and loaded waffle fries. After Dark and Grab & Go will reach other sites "based on site and local demand", which is not a date.
Who pays for the remodels is not stated
Tracy Gehlan, president of Subway EMEA, says the format means "stronger restaurant economics" for franchisees. The evidence offered is one operator: Didar Singh, who has four restaurants and says average spend has risen at his Blueprint site in Walton-on-Thames. No percentage is given. Nor does the company say what a Subway Blueprint conversion costs or how the bill is split between the franchisor and the people who own the shops.
The growth itself is being contracted through master franchise deals. On 22 September Subway signed one with Vienna-based Emerging Bites for 300 restaurants in Austria, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia and the Czech Republic over ten years, its sixth such agreement in EMEA in under 18 months. Other American chains enter European markets the same way: Taco Bell is opening in Germany through two franchise groups.
Until Subway publishes a starting number, "nearly double" cannot be checked. The first date that can be is 1 January 2027.
