Jersey Mike’s Is Winning the Sandwich War. It Still Needs to Win Over Gen Z.

Context (by Claude) on the Jersey Mike's story below. If Gen Z isn't going to Jersey Mike's where are they going? Do they frequent "fast food" more than older people?

Chicken and Mexican dominate Gen Z's wallet share, and subs aren't cracking the national top tier the way they do with older cohorts (or on college campuses specifically).

Chick-fil-A has held the #1 spot in Piper Sandler's "Taking Stock With Teens" survey since 2018, and it's not close — its 17% share is more than the next two combined once you account for how fragmented the rest of the field is. Notably, no sandwich/sub chain cracks the national top tier here (though Jersey Mike's does show up as a regional/campus favorite in more localized surveys).

This is from CDC/NHANES national health survey data -the pattern is unambiguous: fast-food visit frequency drops steadily with age. A separate 2024 industry survey (Revenue Management Solutions) found the same direction with fresher numbers: 50% of Gen Z said they were visiting fast food more often than a year prior, vs. 36% of Millennials, while Boomers and Gen X were pulling back.

Put the two charts together and the read on Jersey Mike's is fairly clean: not only does Gen Z skew toward chicken (Chick-fil-A) and fast-casual Mexican (Chipotle) over sub sandwiches, but the generation Jersey Mike's does over-index with — Gen X and Boomers — is also the generation visiting fast food least often overall. That's a tougher growth position than it looks at first glance: Jersey Mike's isn't just under-converting Gen Z, it's concentrated in the cohorts with the lowest and declining visit frequency, while the highest-frequency, still-growing cohort is spending its loyalty on chicken and burritos instead of subs.

Jersey Mike’s Is Winning the Sandwich War. It Still Needs to Win Over Gen Z.

The chain’s affluent, older base gives it an edge. But to grow it also needs young customers

By David Wainer, WSJ

Sept. 1, 2026 5:30 am ET

The New York Stock Exchange building facade decorated with a large Jersey Mike's Subs banner.

Jersey Mike’s went public this year. Richard B. Levine/Levine Roberts/ZUMA Press

Affluent older Americans might be the best customers in U.S. dining. They have savings, are relatively insulated from economic swings and, most valuable to a restaurant chain, prefer the familiar to the trendy.

Jersey Mike’s Subs , which recently went public after a Blackstone takeover, spent decades cultivating exactly that customer. Now, valued at roughly $7.5 billion and aiming to grow from about 3,300 stores to 15,000 worldwide, the sandwich chain has to prove its formula can work with a younger generation that’s less well-off. That won’t be easy, and the stock already assumes much of it goes right.

By pairing freshly sliced deli meats with a tightly run franchise network and a TV-heavy advertising strategy, the New Jersey-born chain has built a formidable growth machine. It has notched 20 straight years of same-store sales gains, pushing systemwide sales to $4.3 billion in 2025. The impressive growth has transformed it into the No. 2 sub chain in America, behind Subway. Crucially, it has something most casual-dining chains covet: pricing power. It can charge roughly $15 to $20 for a sub, drink and chips by catering to the upper half of a K-shaped economy.

But past consistency won’t be enough. Jersey Mike’s trades at an enterprise value of about 20 times projected earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization—a premium to franchised peers like Wingstop and McDonald’s, which go for about 15. Jersey Mike’s carries roughly $1.8 billion in net debt, some of it used to fund distributions to Blackstone pre-IPO. Its premium makes some sense given that the chain is a rare growth story in the restaurant business.

But to further rise from these levels over the long term, Jersey Mike’s has to pull off a rare feat in the franchise business: adding thousands of stores without letting the freshness and quality slip. It also has to start winning over Gen Z in an era of fickle wellness trends and viral food crazes. That is a lot to ask of a chain whose most loyal customer is old enough to find Danny DeVito a reason to buy a sandwich.

The demographic numbers are stark. Roughly 70% of Jersey Mike’s customers are Gen Xers or Boomers, while Gen Z accounts for just 2%, according to Wall Street analyst reports citing company figures. It is also an unusually affluent crowd for fast casual: More than 60% of patrons earn more than $80,000, and only 14% make under $40,000.

Part of the draw is old-school deli theater. Employees bake bread fresh every morning and slice hefty portions of meat and cheese to order before finishing them “Mike’s Way,” with onions, lettuce, tomatoes, red wine vinegar, oil and spices.

Sitting at the top of the K is a comfortable place to be. But to keep taking share from a shrinking Subway, Jersey Mike’s has to reach more price-conscious diners. It has dabbled in value wPanera

Getting more of them to try it is the challenge. Historically, Jersey Mike’s leaned on broad television audiences and sponsorships—like its NFL partnership with Eli Manning as brand ambassador—while devoting little of its marketing budget to social media. It spent about 1% in 2025, versus 10% to 25% at many scaled peers, according to its IPO filing.

Reaching Gen Z means shifting toward more segmented channels like Instagram and TikTok, a move the company says it is now making.

Keeping more people coming back with a savvy digital strategy is where the sustainable growth lies. Jersey Mike’s already has much of the machinery: more than 12.5 million active loyalty members, an ordering app and digital sales exceeding 40% of the total.

The Jersey Mike's Subs logo, a red oval with "Jersey Mike's Since 1956" and "SUBS," is visible on a glass door, with a blurred interior and a reflection of a man.

Jersey Mike’s plans to open thousands more stores. Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg News

The company says loyalty members visit about three times as often as other customers, so the opportunity is turning casual diners into regulars, leaning on personalized offers rather than blasting the same message to everyone. It is a familiar playbook for management: Chief Executive Charlie Morrison previously ran Wingstop, where a data-driven digital approach helped fuel the chain’s growth. He was brought in by Blackstone in 2025 to modernize Jersey Mike’s with a similar playbook.

In an era that prizes freshness, Jersey Mike’s is the ascendant sub power, with room to run. At this price, though, investors will need it to do the hardest thing in the business: keep the momentum going after the easy growth is gone.