He Bought A Sub Shop At 17… Jersey Mike’s Now Has 1,686 Locations!

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Speaker 1: This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories, the show where America is the star and the American people. And to search for The All American Stories podcast, go to the iHeartRadio app or wherever you find your podcast. Up next, we bring you a story that starts in my home state, and that is New Jersey. While most of the world had no idea what the submarine sandwich was back in the nineteen sixties, one fourteen-year-old boy took a job making them at a sandwich shop at the Jersey Shore in Point Pleasant, New Jersey. Here’s Peter Cancrow to tell his story.

00:00:57
Speaker 2: The Jersey Shore.

00:00:58
Speaker 3: In the summer, it became very, very busy, inundated with so many people from North Jersey and New York. So the jobs were very plentiful.

00:01:09
Speaker 2: So I started out.

00:01:10
Speaker 3: Believe it or not, mowing lawns. So, at the age of ten, I had three lawnmowing jobs. One that paid three dollars, one that paid, you know, three point fifty, and one that paid five dollars. So, in that year, that was big, big money.

00:01:25
Speaker 2: Cash money.

00:01:26
Speaker 3: Used to crawl underneath the boardwalk and pick up the loose change that people dropped through the cracks. Made money that.

00:01:31
Speaker 2: Way, and then washed and cleaned cars.

00:01:35
Speaker 3: And then the first job was at Mike Subbs in seventy-one.

00:01:48
Speaker 2: So I was a fourteen-year-old.

00:01:49
Speaker 3: My brother worked the other year before and told the boss, “So, look at my brother.” I know he’s, he’ll work hard, but I’m not sure how bright he is.

00:02:00
Speaker 2: And so that’s how I got the job.

00:02:05
Speaker 3: Started out at a dollar seventy-five an hour, and I was gonna, you know, possibly work at Hoffman’s Ice Cream. Another mentor of mine, Bob Hoffman, he was going to pay a dollar-fifty. But I went to Mike’s for a dollar seventy-five, and that was, that was pretty good money back then. I think the minimum wage, maybe it was like eighty cents back then. So, friends of mine were making eighty cents an hour. I was making a dollar seventy-five. So, I walked into Mike Subbs, you know, age fourteen, first job, and my voice mattered. And that was the culture that was in Mike’s. It was, you joined a team, and they kind of brought you on board. It wasn’t like you were the rookie, or they made you pay of dues or price. No, they brought you in, and you were part of that whole team, and they cared about your development and how you worked, and they spent the time with each new person coming in.

00:02:59
Speaker 2: They did a great job with that, spent time with us.

00:03:01
Speaker 3: The volume was obviously incredible. Jersey Shore in the summer, I mean, crazy sales. We did like one hundred thousand dollars a week in sales, today’s dollars, you know, averaging like eight hundred and fifty, nine hundred bread a day. It was incredible volume. The number one sub shop, if you were in the country, in the world, because there wasn’t really any of that back then. So, in fifty-six, Mike’s opened by someone named Mike and the Jersey Shore, and that was really, there was no McDonald’s, a Burger King in town. Then, there was no fast food restaurant. So, it was really a unique product. The submarine sandwich, the meal within itself, if you will, so really captured a lot of attention, and all the people traveling to the shore, and then going back out to where they lived around the country. Words spread, and, you know, when I got involved in seventy-one and then later bought it, everyone would say they don’t have anything like this where I’m from: California, Ohio, Chicago. And it’s funny how we usually get people to come in and take the subs, wrap the travel, and take them back.

00:04:12
Speaker 2: You know, all over the world.

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Speaker 3: The guy come in every third Thursday and take them back to London, you know, somebody would take them to South America.

00:04:18
Speaker 2: Had a doctor’s group that took them.

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Speaker 3: To the Soviet Union at the time, Russia, you know. So, we always kind of would highlight that and kind of have a laugh about it. We used to wrap them the travel, put the oil and vinegar on the side, how to have the special container, and make sure they showed them how to sprinkle it on, you know.

00:04:38
Speaker 2: So that was always fun.

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Speaker 3: You have fun with the people coming in, and they have fun with you in return. So, you’re three feet away from the customer, and they’re coming in, whether they’ve had a bad day or not, you try and turn them around, you know, turn their day around, make an impact, you know, kind of share your life with the customer. And, you know, that’s kind of what we’re taught that culture about, kind of raising up, kind of putting your arm around them, and, you know, evolve with your regular customers.

00:05:13
Speaker 2: It’s, it’s repeat business. They shake their heads, you…

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Speaker 3: Know, Peter, you know, I can’t believe, you know, the people you’ve got in here. The service! Oh, yeah, your subs are good. That was always secondary. It was always the service. And it was more than just, “Hi, how are you today?”

00:05:28
Speaker 2: “Thanks very much?” “Coming again?” No, it was real. It was genuine.

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Speaker 3: And it’s the eye contact that isn’t always something that you say as much as, you know, looking in people’s eyes and nodding and, “Hey, how are you?” And, you know, thanks to pick up the bag to go, and so there’s a lot of little nuances that go into it. So, I started in seventy-one and then work there summers and through the winters part-time. And then the owner, Victor Murlow at the time, put it up for sale.

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Speaker 2: And I was in seventy-five.

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Speaker 3: It went up for sale, and I thought, for the first time, I’ll be able to go to Florida, you know, on a spring break. Because I was always working. Every other spring break I couldn’t go. So this, I said, “All right, I’m going to be able to go this time.” All of a sudden, I went home one night and my mother said, “I heard Mike’s is for sale.” And at first I was a little upset, like, “Well, how’d you know?” You know how moms are, they find out everything. So, she looked me in the eye as I was going up the stairs, and she said, “Well, why don’t you buy it?”

00:06:34
Speaker 1: And you’re listening to Peter Cancrow tell the story of Jersey Mike’s Subs and how it came to be. And by the way, he’s a hustler from the time he starts. And by the way, what we’ve learned is you can’t teach entrepreneurship. You can’t teach risk-taking, guts, and just doing it. No college for this guy, no good grades, bad grades. I love the line: “He’ll work hard.” “We’re not sure how bright he is,” when we come back. More from Jersey Mike’s founder, Peter Canker, here on Our American Stories. Plehbeb here, the host of Our American Stories. Every day on this show, we’re bringing inspiring stories from across this great country, stories from our big cities and small towns. But we truly can’t do the show without you. Our stories are free to listen to, but they’re not free to make. If you love what you hear, go to OurAmericanStories.com and click the donate button. Give a little, give a lot. Go to AluramericanStories.com and give. And we’re back with Now We’re American Stories and the story of Peter Kankrow and Jersey Mike’s Subs. At the age of seventeen, his mother suggested he’d buy the sub shop he worked that at the Jersey Shore. Back to Kankrow with his story.

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Speaker 3: And I sort of laughed, laughed at her, turned, went up the stairs, and it took one flight of stairs before a trigger went off of my head. It was a Sunday night, and I got up the next morning, didn’t go to school for that week.

00:08:42
Speaker 2: Called the owner that morning.

00:08:43
Speaker 3: I said, “You know, Victor, I’m going to try—where are we?—I’m going to try and raise some money.” “So, well, I’ve got two people demanding a contract. I can probably hold them off a little bit.” So, I went out literally knocking on doors, telling people, you know, I worked there for four years, I know the business, this is what, you know, looking to do. And I lived next door at a couple of wealthy towns, if you will, and went to see those folks, and just called them up and knocked on the door and went to see them, and they were receptive, but as, you know, trying to raise capital and money, it’s always difficult. And then called up Coach Rod Smith, who was my youth football coach, who was also a banker, and it was a Sunday night, and he said, “Yeah, come on over.” So, I went to talk to him, and he said, “You know, I think we can do something,” and he did. And we closed on the place March thirty-first, nineteen seventy-five. I was seventeen in high school, so I would go to homeroom history and skip Jim English and a few other courses. And it’s funny, I wasn’t going to be able to graduate in June because I missed like three months of gym. So, I had to come up with a medical excuse. I was president of my class. People said, “Oh, you’re going to ruin life.” I was supposed to go, possibly, you know, study law at University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, but bought a sub shop instead. So, it was one hundred and twenty-five thousand, nineteen seventy-five. So, I don’t know, maybe six hundred, seven hundred thousand, today’s dollars. So, for a seventeen-year-old to borrow that, you know, no money down, all financed. You know, what if the business doesn’t do well, you know, what happens, that kind of thing. So, the owner for years didn’t raise the prices. So, I get in and take over the business. And that happens sometimes where you go a year, two years, three years. Well, we hadn’t raised the prices in like five years, and we’ve got a lot of volume. We’re putting money in the bank and paying the bills. And you find out about unemployment, disability tax, and quarterly payroll taxes, and all of this. And it’s like, “Wow!” You know, and you sort of see that, you know, “My goodness!” You know, I’ve got a raise the prices. And I thought, you know, no one would come in and buy a sub ever again.

00:11:04
Speaker 2: But we did.

00:11:04
Speaker 3: We raised the prices, and not one person said anything, you know, the first day, second day, except one person actually came in with exact change, and, oh, the price went, “Oh, okay.” I said, “Don’t worry about it,” you know. “Oh no, I’ll bring it next time.”

00:11:18
Speaker 2: “No, no, it’s good.” “You know.”

00:11:20
Speaker 3: So, what that showed me is that you never cut the quality or service. But you’ve got to get the right amount of money for your product. So, seventy-five took over, and the volume was incredible, and work the store and business, and, you know, for years people were wrapping the subs to travel, and I can’t believe it.

00:11:44
Speaker 2: “We don’t have anything like this.”

00:11:46
Speaker 3: And it wasn’t until, gosh, like eighty-six, that finally we said, you know, you know, we should, you know, try and start franchising. And that was a process going to different companies and attorneys and figuring it out.

00:11:58
Speaker 2: And it wasn’t any roadmap there. I had to figure it all out. It wasn’t; I didn’t have any mentors in business.

00:12:04
Speaker 3: To kind of show me. Today, like it’s funny, today people say, “I want a franchise.”

00:12:09
Speaker 2: “Oh, let me talk to you.”

00:12:10
Speaker 3: You know, I could shed some light on this whole industry. Finally started a franchise in eighty-six, eighty-seven, and it took off.

00:12:21
Speaker 2: People came in. We didn’t advertise to.

00:12:23
Speaker 3: Sell. And it really grew very well in Ocean of Momouth County, and then we went out to Ohio. We went out to Tennessee and opened the store, and we got the Best Sub award for by Reader’s Choice awards pretty much in Ohio and Tennessee, and that’s happened almost in virtually every market that we went to. We had one store in California, one store in Seattle. We’d win the best sub award, best sandwich award in the market. So, it kind of told us something like, “Wow!” This can work across valleys, mountains, you know, and one store. And we never had a goal of opening a second store or plan. Just sort of evolved and happened. People would come in, try the product. “Oh my goodness, this is great! I want to open up one!” So, that’s how it evolved, you know, and just really grew through word of mouth. So, we franchise, and it grew, and we built up a number of stores. But, you know, we would go and commit to the store. But I tell you, when we opened one store in a totally different market, we went and we opened up that store with the owner, and we stayed, you know, for weeks, for, you know, a month if we had to, a month and a half, and with several people. So, the amount of money that we spent and committed to the owners was incredible, you know, more than franchising would do. And I think that’s the reputation we have as a company, as a franchise company, is that we are true partners with the owners, you know, and it’s really been given us an edge, if you will, you know, out in the marketplace. So, yeah. So, in the beginning, when we started franchise, and, boy, it really took off. And every day we made, we put back into the business, and if we had leftover money, we were pushing the marketing for that store opening. And we evolved to the point where we were opening and spending all the money, and, and some. So, we had a, boy, if everything was fine as long as we kept opening. And then ninety-one happened and that recession. There was many recessions from seventy-five till now, but that one was the one that hit our company the worst. So, banks in the Northeast, all of them got hit. There was even a local bank that actually went out of business here in Tom’s River area. So, banks were giving money non-stop to everybody that wanted to open a business, and all of a sudden, no money. Nobody could borrow any money. So, we sort of flatlined for a while. I was negative like a million and a half, couple of million dollars. I said, “Oh, boy!” And everything I had to lay off, and it just really, you talk about, just devastating your life, if your soul, everything. But slowly, you know, came back and then hired everyone back. But I tell you that was a dark time because, you know, first time in my life that I went down and got stripped, sold everything. And it’s funny, the four-to-one-k plan that people have. I liquidated that, you know, how to take the penalties, and later on I liquidated it again.

00:15:24
Speaker 2: So, it’s funny. I don’t have a four-to-oh-one-k plan.

00:15:27
Speaker 3: Still today, because, you know, I say it’s a bad luck. You know, I’ll have to liquidate it, you know. So, it’s funny. So, that lesson learned, you still remember today. You know about, “Don’t over-expand!” You know, you’re, you’re tempted to push, push, and expand. “Let’s go!” And that’s great to have that attitude, to have that—you know—really the push.

00:15:49
Speaker 2: But you’ve got to play.

00:15:50
Speaker 3: Smart ball as well with business. And it was quite a process. It took, probably, gosh, you know, a couple of years where we just had a, you know, hired back a couple of guys, and slowly grew, but we weren’t growing, and a lot of other markets we didn’t have the multi-unit owners they could finance their own stores. We had owner-operators. So, it really took a while. Ninety-two and ninety-three. You know, “Wow!” This is really humbling, you know, from having greatness and achievements and success, and then to be humbled down.

00:16:23
Speaker 2: Oh, gosh.

00:16:24
Speaker 3: It wasn’t until like towards ninety-three, ninety-four, all of a sudden, you know, “Okay, now North Carolina guy came in and opened up!” And then somebody saw the store, “Oh, I want to open up!” And I think the economy in Raleigh, North Carolina then was really started back sooner than most other economies with The Research Triangle and the college universities. And so, North Carolina really made our company.

00:16:50
Speaker 1: And you’re listening to Peter Cankro tell, well, as we’ve come to know, the typical entrepreneur’s story, except when he went to raise capitol, he was seventeen. It’s the hardest work there is—is convincing somebody to give their money to you on an idea. And, my goodness, instead of a lawyer and another one, we have Jersey Mike’s Subs, a place I would drive an hour or two just to get their Number Two. When we come back, more of Peter Cancrow’s story; his entrepreneur’s story filled, by the way, always with failure and with setbacks. And, again, that’s what makes the entrepreneur, not just the risk-taking, but plowing through the hard times to the other side. And when we come back, more of Peter Cancrow’s story, Jersey Mike’s Subs story, here on Our American Stories. And we return to Our American Stories and to the story of Peter Kankrow and how he grew Jersey Mike’s Subs from one shop on the Jersey Shore to nearly two thousand locations by 2020. If you’re lucky enough to have one near you, well, I don’t have to tell you what most of us are the Jersey Shore already knew. Here’s Peter to tell us more about how he used the company’s success to.

00:18:35
Speaker 3: Do good.

00:18:38
Speaker 2: Around the country.

00:18:39
Speaker 3: Seventeen hundred store is about open right now, and, you know, the growth now is really starting to escalate because it’s all coming from within.

00:18:50
Speaker 2: But it’s people.

00:18:52
Speaker 3: The owners get it, and that’s the people that we want to come on board with us. That share that culture that we’re gonna get involved in the community.

00:19:02
Speaker 2: We’re gonna give.

00:19:03
Speaker 3: You know, obviously, you have to have a good business model and make profits to be able to give. But it’s kind of has to what comes first, you know. So, right away.