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Subway's Footlong Pretzel Bread: Why Subway Hates Us | San Diego Magazine

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Subway's Footlong Pretzel Bread: Why Subway Hates Us | San Diego Magazine


Call me a size queen but as San Diego Magazine‘s official pretzel correspondent I was drooling when I saw Subway advertising foot-long Auntie Anne’s soft pretzels as part of a new campaign of foot-long snacks. Soft pretzels are why the gods gifted us tongues—to share with us the divine glory of the pillowy bread knot. Soft pretzels are without question the best bread.

So, Subway and Aunti A’s collabing on a full 12 inches? Yeah, I’m tipping my head back and taking the whole thing. Sucking the salt off and eating it like a duck. Generally, I think Subway is gross and smells funny. But it’s a pretzel! Who cares if it comes from the sickly-sweet scented armpit of the corporate food industry? It will be cheap, and it’s gotta be decent, right?

Wrong. Violently wrong.

This is no pretzel. This is an STD. Subway’s foot-long middle finger to us all. I didn’t get past the first bite. I’d rather eat a paper towel tube.

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Bread this bad can only mean one thing: Subway hates America.

Imagine me, blissfully strolling across a strip mall parking lot, spinning my keys, maybe humming a little love song, excited to spend $3 for what I figured might prove to be something of a fast food guilty pleasure. Not something to eat everyday, but a treat for when life’s lights go dull. So I broke a five, collected my pretzel-filled paper sleeve, plastic cup of honey mustard, and headed to my truck.

What came next was a silent fart in my mouth from the asses of corporate America. Lord, The face I made. This is the Malört of bread.

This pretzel is a mouth sore, an atrocity. The outside is dry and the inside is…also dry? Chewy in an unappealing way, it is utterly flavorless. A full disappointment. Stale white bread with a dry crunchy shell. Calling this a pretzel is racist. It’s going to give an entire generation ARFID.

I can’t believe more Subways aren’t on fire. Philly, where you at? I thought you guys loved pretzels.

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Subway's new Auntie Anne's footlong pretzel bread next to a tape measure indicating it is not 12 inches long

Serving this in actual restaurants feels like an assault on the US from a foreign enemy. Deplete their bread reserves, break their spirits. But Subway is not a foreign power. They’re the second largest fast food chain in the country and a $16 billion revenue stream for private equity parent company, Roark Capital Group. Roark owns dozens of brands like Arby’s, Dunkin’ Donuts, Cheesecake Factory, Cinnabon, Auntie Anne’s, the list goes on. With all that airport food they’re selling, Roark generates some $77 billion in annual revenue. They’re also notorious wage thieves and enemies of the $15 federal minimum wage.

So, let me tell you in case you’re slow on the uptick: everything is rotten in the stratospheres of American power. Execs at these corporate monoliths haven’t just turned their backs on the American people: they spit in our faces, steal wallets and laugh, clearly aware they are too big to face consequences.

Who do we even complain to? These people run the world. What are you going to do? Buy the ingredients? Make your own pretzels? You work two jobs and pay 60 percent of your take home pay in rent. Your check engine light is coming on any day now. Meanwhile companies like Roark and Subway make billions and spend their R&D budgets on figuring out how to do less for Americans who are out here fighting for their lives.

No wonder the world is getting so damn expensive.

Did you know you need to earn 80 percent more today than in 2020 to purchase a house? And food costs have increased 25 percent in recent years. That raise you’re hoping for? It means almost nothing compared to what things cost out there.

Subway's new Auntie Anne's footlong pretzel bread
Courtesy of Subway

Have you heard of ‘shrinkflation?’ Companies are charging you more while giving you less. Even fruits and vegetables have gotten less nutritious. In San Diego—where we pay the most expensive energy bills in the country—you can make six-figures and still be lower-middle class. The US is one big Ponzi scheme. Life here smells more sour by the day. We’re getting screwed, and these pretzels are just proof.

Life is objectively getting harder. The middle class is gone, and most Americans don’t have a $500 emergency fund. We’re one toothache away from living in a tent. More people than ever need $3 food, and we’re being fed stylized co-branded trash. Subway has more money than god and the devil combined, they could easily offer something palatable, something that makes life a little worth living, if they chose.

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But corporate America does not see itself as part of the fabric of our people. Roark and the like act as an occupying force, and the bean counting sociopaths they employ have no interest in our shared existences, our shared joys, our shared future. They’d steal your baby’s first breath if they could. They want our very essences. Roark, Auntie Anne’s, Subway— these companies don’t make our food in kitchens, they make it on a spreadsheet. And they hate us, you can taste it.

Did you know Subway paid Charles Barkley and Klay Thompson to advertise these 12 inch turds? Paid them, what? Tens of thousands? Just to convince us to buy this trash. Barkley and Thompson owe us all an apology. Donate your dirty money to food kitchens, you sellouts.

Jesus, my jaw is sore. Do you know how miserably dead warm bread has to be to cause muscle fatigue? I’d rather spend $3 in a prison commissary.

This is what late stage capitalism tastes like. The empire is falling, and American corporations are switching the vacuum on high, sucking as much joy from our lives and money from our pockets as possible before it all comes crashing down. These poisonous, celebrity-endorsed marketing proposals are what they feed us as the world burns.

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We could do so much better

I mean it. The bread we eat is important. In Arabic, the word for bread is the same as the word for life. Somehow, in America, we’ve been driven to the point that pretzel now means sadness. I’m no nihilist, but why is it that in America, believing that everyone deserves real, affordable food—or edible bread—is seen as glory-holing The Communist Manifesto? If this is really what our country has come to, revolution must be nigh. Break out the guillotines, I’ll meet you outside of Roark.

But first, I gotta go brush my teeth.



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San Diego, CA

Flu cases continue to climb nationwide and in San Diego County

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Flu cases continue to climb nationwide and in San Diego County


SAN DIEGO (KGTV) — The bug is biting. Flu cases continue to climb nationwide and right here at home, and San Diego doctors said we’re not immune to the trend.

Flu cases have increased year by year and this season, the peak reached 3,567 cases, the highest its been in about five years, according to data from San Diego County.

The numbers show that during and after the pandemic, cases continue to rise, and local doctors, like Dr. Nick Saade with Sharp Memorial Hospital, said the data reflects what he’s seen too.

“The short answer is yes, we are seeing more cases than recent years,” said Dr. Saade. “There’s definitely been kind of like a more rapid increase in the number of cases and a larger number of cases around this time when you compare it to the last four or five years or so.”

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Dr. Saade said trends are going back to where they were before COVID. That’s because during the pandemic, many were taking measures to protect themselves with masks, washing hands, and social distancing.

“But when you look back further than that, you find that the cases and the rates of increase of cases are probably more consistent with what you saw in the pre-pandemic levels,” said Dr. Saade.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevent reports nationwide, visits to the emergency room because of influenza are high and continue to increase.

Symptoms include fever, chills, cough and sore throat, but Dr. Saade said there are preventative steps you can take, like keeping distance and practicing good hygiene.

“There’s a number of ways you can catch a bug this winter season,” said Dr. Saade. “So it could be contaminated surfaces, contaminated food and water, direct contact with other individuals.”

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He said while getting teh shot may not completely prevent you from getting the illness, but your symptoms won’t be as severe.





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San Diego, CA

Escondido reptile rescue facing higher costs, at risk of closure

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Escondido reptile rescue facing higher costs, at risk of closure


One of the largest reptile rescues in the country hopes 2025 is better than 2024.

The EcoVivarium Reptile Sanctuary and Museum cares for 400 snakes, lizards, and turtles at its facility in Escondido. Most of their tenants were saved from bad owners or bad situations. However, the extreme rate of inflation in the last year has EcoVivarium’s owner worried.

“Everything is going through the roof right now,” sighed Susan Nowicke, who founded EcoVivarium 15 years ago.

“Like every other Californian, our insurance rates more than quadrupled,” she explained.

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Nowicke said their utility bill doubled and they pay $10,000 a month in rent. None of those expenses include the cost of caring for the wide variety of animals.

“My staff work for minimum wage,” Nowicke added with tears in her eyes. “I’m not proud of that fact. I would like to pay all of them what they are worth. They are worth far more than that. And they deserve more than that for the work they do. They work hard.”

The money EcoVivarium makes from tours and grants likely won’t cut it in 2025. Making matters worse, the nonprofit doesn’t make any extra money from local governments or other rescues when they take on another reptile.

“They have their funding to run their operations,” Nowicke shrugged. “They expect us to have our funding to run our operations.”

Begrudgingly, Nowicke said they need $250,000 more every year to serve the community and the reptiles.

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“I’m very concerned. I am very, very concerned for our future,” she said.

Nowicke said they are also at capacity. EcoVivarium can’t take on anymore rescues until they get more room and more funding.



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San Diego, CA

Can a once-toxic shoreline solve Mission Bay’s recreation needs? San Diego readies rival visions for South Shores

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Can a once-toxic shoreline solve Mission Bay’s recreation needs? San Diego readies rival visions for South Shores


An overhaul of the long-neglected area could help anchor major changes coming to other parts of Mission Bay: Fiesta Island and the bay’s entire northeastern corner.

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