A chef’s sub shop on Capitol Hill.

Quiznos began in Denver, Colorado, in 1981. English Wikipedia says the founder, Jimmy Lambatos, opened the restaurant with his partner Todd Disner at the corner of 13th and Grant Streets in the Capitol Hill neighbourhood, and that Lambatos was an experienced chef who had worked as executive chef at the Colorado Mine Co. steakhouse and had founded an Italian restaurant, Footers, in 1978. Nation’s Restaurant News also dated the brand’s founding to 1981 in a February 2021 report.

The shop served baguette-style bread with its own dressings, and Lambatos decided to toast its submarine sandwiches. Wikipedia quotes him calling toasting “a signature type of thing”, and the menu also carried salads, soups and desserts. Wikipedia describes Quiznos today as a chain specialising in toasted submarine sandwiches.

Franchising followed quickly. Wikipedia says the restaurant began offering franchises in 1983 under the name Quiznos American, Inc. In 1987 Rick Schaden and his father, the aviation attorney Richard Schaden, opened a Quiznos franchise in a shopping centre in Boulder, Colorado, added further restaurants and in January 1991 bought the chain from its founders, renaming the company the Quiznos Franchise Corp., with Rick Schaden as president and later chief executive. Wikipedia says Quiznos went public in February 1994 and was taken private again by the Schaden family in June 2001.

Wikipedia traces the brand abroad to Vancouver in 1996, then to Japan in 1999, Peterborough in England in 2001 and Monterrey, Mexico, in 2002, with later restaurants in India, the Philippines, Russia and the United Arab Emirates. In January 2012, it says, a majority stake was bought by Avenue Capital Group of New York. Quiznos filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in Colorado in March 2014 and emerged that June, Wikipedia records.

High Bluff, REGO and a reimagined logo.

Wikipedia says Quiznos announced on 11 June 2018 that it had been acquired by the California-based private-equity firm High Bluff Capital Partners, and that the chain kept its Denver headquarters. Nation’s Restaurant News reported in February 2021 that Quiznos was owned by REGO Restaurant Group, a subsidiary of High Bluff, which bought Quiznos in June 2018 and acquired the Taco Del Mar chain in July 2018. Verdict Food Service described REGO in May 2022 as the owner of the Quiznos and Taco Del Mar brands, with Tim Casey as president and chief executive. High Bluff has owned Quiznos, through REGO, since June 2018.

Under REGO the brand was redrawn. In the February 2021 report, REGO’s president, Mark Lohmann, told Nation’s Restaurant News that the Quiznos brand transformation included a reimagined Quiznos logo, which had last been updated in 2001, along with a new restaurant prototype, and that the brand’s main websites in the United States and Canada would be redesigned and rebuilt later that year. The paper said REGO had worked with the Austin-based consultancy Prophet to survey customers, analyse data and refine the brand.

The prototype was described in the same report. It added flat-top grills and fryers, which Lohmann said would add flair and an entertainment factor for dine-in guests, and open display cases dominated its interior. Casey said the rebrand would be rolled out in phases, with franchisees able to take part without necessarily buying new equipment, and that a drive-thru would be a core element of the brand in future. The initial prototype was due to open in New Mexico in July 2021; Wikipedia says it opened in Hobbs, and describes a later format called the Qube, a pre-fabricated drive-thru unit designed for smaller plots.

Design and documentation.

A sandwich shop has a short list of surfaces on which its identity can live. Outside, there is the sign over the door and, in many cases, a window or a pole sign that has to be read from a moving car. Inside, there is the menu board behind the counter, which carries the name, the colours and the type all at once, and which has to stay legible while prices and items change around it.

The rest of the identity travels with the food. Sandwiches are wrapped in printed paper or foil, slipped into bags, stacked into boxes for catering and handed over with cups and napkins, so a chain’s name and pattern leave the shop on objects that are thrown away within the hour. Ordering slips, stickers and receipts carry it too.

Each guide in this group looks at one sandwich or sub chain through those surfaces: where the business started and who founded it, who has owned it since, and how its name, logo, signage and packaging are described in sources that can be dated. Where a fact rests only on the company’s own account, the guide says so.

Super Bowl spots and a pair of singing creatures.

Wikipedia says the brand’s major advertising push began with a campaign during the 2002 Super Bowl, and that early spots presented the idea of toasting a sandwich as an invention to rank alongside trousers, contrasted with men wearing bushes. A 2003 spot showed a man, played by Jim Parsons, who had been raised by wolves. Wikipedia also records a series of Canadian commercials with the hockey commentator Don Cherry, a 2005 campaign featuring Baby Bob, the slogan “Eat Up” revealed in June 2006 with a steaming sub and the line “Mmmm… toasty”, and voice-overs by the actor Michael Clarke Duncan.

Then came the Spongmonkeys. Restaurant Business reported in July 2023 that the characters were created by Joel Veitch, who also voices them, that they lived on the internet before Quiznos picked them for its ads in 2004, and that they last appeared in Quiznos television advertising in 2005. The paper described the character as a rodent-like creature with human teeth and a screechy singing voice, paired with a silent partner on acoustic guitar. Wikipedia says the commercials adapted Veitch’s earlier song “We Like the Moon” into “We Love the Subs”, and that Quiznos stopped airing them after a few months.

In July 2023 the Spongmonkeys returned. Restaurant Business reported that a digital campaign designed by Tank Design and Veitch sent them on a road trip to places still served by a Quiznos, opening with the line “It’s harder to find a Quiznos these days and we’re here to fix that”. It quoted the company’s press release acknowledging that the creatures were still loved by many while some found them as cringeworthy as ever.

For a design guide, Quiznos shows how a single product idea — the toasted sub — and unconventional advertising can define a brand across owners, and how a revived mascot can be used to signal a new start. Compare it with Subway and Blimpie. For this guide we use toaster red, crust gold and char with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Quiznos’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.