This Chain Has The Worst Hot Sandwiches, According To 37% Of People

What, exactly, would you consider to be a "hot sandwich?" Would a hot dog fall into this category? What about a hamburger? According to a poll conducted by YouGov, 60% consider hamburgers to be sandwiches, while only 32% consider hot dogs to fall into that category. However, 62% said sloppy joes are members of the sandwich family, and there are even 15% of the populace who consider tacos to be sandwiches, too.

If you adopt such a liberal definition of the word sandwich, we'd be hard-pressed to think of a single fast food chain that does not offer a hot sandwich on its menu. Panda Express, maybe? But then, perhaps an egg roll could fit the definition ... Okay, semantics aside, for the purpose of our poll on hot sandwiches. Mashed selected six different chains that are primarily known for offering sandwiches of the submarine variety (or hoagie, grinder, hero, etc. depending on your vernacular), these being Blimpie, Firehouse Subs, Jersey Mike's, Penn Station, Quiznos, and Subway. Well, 599 people in the U.S. responded to our call and told us which of these chains made the hot sandwiches they were least likely to order.

Firefighters, for some reason, are reputed to be pretty decent cooks, and Firehouse Subs, their sort-of namesake chain, evidently turns out a decent hot sub, since less than 7% of our poll respondents gave it a thumbs-down. Penn Station was out of favor with less than 10% of respondents, while Jersey Mike's was disliked by fewer than 11%. It's possible that the least-unpopular chains had fewer naysayers because people are less familiar with them. After all, it's hard to hate on something you don't know at all. The top three worst hot sandwich purveyors, however, have a much larger footprint. Quiznos, our #3 finisher in this unpopularity contest, probably puts together a pretty good hot sub, since under 12% of those we polled disliked them. Blimpie fared considerably worse, pulling nearly 25% of the votes to come in second.

The first on the list, however, coming in as the worst chain for hot sandwiches, was — no surprise — the beleaguered Subway. The chain was down-voted by over 37% of the people in our survey. Why are we not surprised? After all, this poll of fewer than 600 people is hardly the biggest problem Subway's faced in recent years. From a spokesperson with a seriously shady side to "tuna" that's more like mystery meat (via USA Today), and bread that can double as cake (Marie Antoinette would be proud!), Subway seems to be under some sort of sandwich chain curse they just can't seem to shake.