Party Subs

Last week I was called at work by a customer who works for the local school, Indiana University, and wanted enough party subs to feed 60 people.

Party subs are 6ft long and I'll talk more about them later.

The first year our store was open, our owner worked very hard to get on IU's preferred catering list, eating hundreds of dollars in labor and food costs to cater big events at no charge to the school.

Now, whenever resident halls, groups, and university staff need someone to cater (and because IU will pay for it), they go to the preferred catering list and can see our store.

As was the case with this man. He's an RA in the dorm across the street and was getting potential new RAs together to discuss applications, etc.

While I was on the phone with the customer I made sure he was satisfied with the toppings he chose, to understand that we do not cut the subs into portions (he is responsible for that), and came up with a good price.

If your event is affiliated with IU we give a 10% discount. If IU is paying through a student account it's tax exempt because they're a school.

So he spent over $250 and all together he wanted 3 party subs which is a grand total of 18ft.

He needed it for Monday (yesterday), so I knew I was going to be the one to have to make it, if only because I was the only one of two people who know how to assemble them who also knew how to make the big bread.

To make party subs we bake the bread in 1.5 ft increments and smoosh them together so-to-speak to look like a 3 ft or 6 ft sub.

The jig is up.

We do not have a 6 ft oven in the back.

To make the bread, we weave 4 sticks of bread (of white and wheat) together in a specific braid. The result is this beautiful marbled bread that's bumpy on top (see attached picture).

Assembling the boxes and wrapping the supports in giant plastic wrap is the next step and that usually takes two people. Luckily, my manager helped me.

However, she left before she could help me assemble the sandwiches.

Thankfully, our lunch rush was less than desirable and my two employees could run up front and help customers so I wouldn't have to leave the back. Had we been any busier I would have had to call my manager for back up.

Cutting into giant bread is much different than cutting into a normal footlong. The poofed up pieces of the marble bread are very fragile and can sink in or break pretty easily. this step is and will always be my least favorite part about the job.

The subs get a ton of extra meat and veggies and assembling them is my favorite part! (besides braiding the bread, that's fun too).

Once they're done we wrap them in more plastic wrap and put them in 3ft boxes and store them in the refrigerator.

One 6ft sub takes about 45 min to assemble. When you're doing two or three of them, however, you get much faster. So the first one took almost an hour but the next two only took 45 minutes.

My back was killing me after leaning over a short prep table for a few hours non-stop.

There were no extra employees there because, well, we werent busy enough to justify anyone else on the clock. However, that meant I had the same responsibilities of the midshift (11-6) PLUS the 3-4 hrs spent on these subs (I'm including baking time also).

The result?

Frantic Ariel trying to make sure everything is ready for the next shift.

Again, it would've been harder had we been busier. It's always thankful to have a slow day or period when you know you have such a large catering order to work on.

Today should be better. Hopefully there's no catering order waiting for me when I get there.