New look brings Subway fans back in droves

Business is better than ever at Olney’s newly remodeled Subway restaurant, which boasts fresh decor and a shiny new salad bar– and soon 12 new sandwiches, said manager LessaBeth Heard. The Enterprise caught up with Heard and employee and recent Olney High School graduate Sarah Stroud to learn what’s new at Subway.

Q: What’s new at our Olney Subway store?

LessaBeth: Everything! We have a new salad bar, new flooring, new walls, new restrooms a new oven – we got that first – new tables, new chairs, new USB ports and wall plugs ins so the kids can charge their phones when they get out of school, or anything like that. We have a new chip rack. We even have new trash cans. I like the green doors. I like

I like the green doors. I like the green paint, I think really it brightens the place up. And our new wall sign stays on all night. Our ‘Open’ sign is really cool too.

Sarah: At night, whenever sunset happens and there’s purple and pink in the sky, it looks so pretty in here.

Q: What’s the occasion for the overhaul?

LessaBeth: This is one of the stores that [owners Robert and Donna Force of Graham] opened and they got a remodel at their Graham store, which is our home store, and so they decided to do a second one because they love our customers, they love Olney and Young County and they wanted to do ours second.

Q: How long did the remodel take, and what did you do while the store was closed?

LessaBeth: Approximately three weeks. Sarah was still at school because it was the first part of May when it started. So the high school kids got to graduate, have pretty much the month off to do their thing, and I went to other stores and worked. I went to the Seymour store, I went to the Graham store and when the remodel was over we came here and cleaned.

Q: Has the remodel changed how you work?

Sarah: It makes the line a lot better. It’s not so dark in here and you can tell the people love the environment because it’s more welcoming than the old store was. Our new salad bank cover is a lot better than the old one. This one is a lot easier to clean and it doesn’t slam down on your food because it has [hydraulic lifts]. It’s really really nice

Q: Has the traffic in the store come back to where it was before the remodel?

LessaBeth: It’s been higher, consistently every day. I think they like our new store. I think they like our employees. I think it’s fresh and clean and it’s better displayed than in the old store. And I think they missed us!

Sarah: It’s a lot different. It’s a lot busier than it used to be and a lot of new people are coming in who didn’t come in before and it’s really nice to see everyone.

Q: Will you need new employees when Sarah and fellow OHS graduate Maggie Olvera go off to college?

LessaBeth: We have a new crew in right now that I am training, and we’ll probably need two replacements after Sarah and Maggie go to college but that’s going to be very difficult to do. Their shoes are very hard to fill. They are very good workers. Both these girls have maintained academic excellence, UIL, sports, cheerleading and both have gone on to college. Sarah has won her scholarship and Maggie has a scholarship too. We are really proud of both our girls.

Q: Are you going to come visit Subway on your college break, Sarah?

Sarah: I will I definitely will. I know we have a Subway in the college but it won’t be the same without everyone here.

LessaBeth: When she comes home she’d better visit!

Sarah: I will.

Q: What is it like to run the only Subway for miles?

LessaBeth: It’s a lot of fun. It’s stressful at times – any fast food restaurant would be because it’s busy at certain times and then we have a lot of work to do after that cleaning the restaurant and getting things ready for our customers. And they missed us so much – that made us feel really good because we strive to have fresh food, fresh vegetables and a healthy menu options for them.

And we have 12 new sandwiches coming out for them in the first part of July.