12 Things You Should Think Twice About Ordering From Jersey Mike's

You have a lot of options when it comes to getting a sub sandwich, and Jersey Mike's is a favorite for many people, for sure. With over 2,800 locations in the United States and hundreds more in the pipeline, Jersey Mike's has grown a robust following since the very first location opened in 1956, in — where else? — New Jersey (safe to say it's no longer just a regional fast food chain).

However, whether you love Jersey Mike's for its tasty "Mike's Way" addition to each sub, adding a zingy blend of vinegar, oil, and spices to every sandwich, you appreciate the sub chain's gluten-free options, or you can't get enough of the robust cheesesteak selection, Jersey Mike's isn't all good and no bad. There are actually a few menu items that you might want to reconsider ordering in the future — for reasons that include your health and just plain poor quality. These are the things you should think twice about ordering from Jersey Mike's.

Yes, it's admittedly delicious, and if you're a Frank's Red Hot Sauce fan, you probably love this buffalo chicken cheesesteak even more. The chicken is doused in the stuff while it's cooking and then served hot and combined with a blue cheese dressing, lettuce, and tomato. Unfortunately, some of the best-tasting foods in the world are also some of the worst for your health.

When it comes to Jersey Mike's buffalo chicken cheesesteak, the health risk comes in the form of salt. A regular-sized cheesesteak comes packed with a whopping 3,344 milligrams of sodium. This sub's not just going to put a dent in your recommended sodium intake for the day; it's going to far surpass how much sodium the experts say you should get in a single day — 2,000 milligrams if you're following the World Health Organization's guidelines. This high salt content can partially be blamed on the Frank's Red Hot Sauce; Frank's is pretty high in sodium, at 190 milligrams per teaspoon.

Let's say you're hankering for a cheesesteak, but you want to avoid all that sodium that's in the buffalo chicken cheesesteak. If you stay clear of subs that don't incorporate Frank's Red Hot Sauce, you should be fine, right? 

Well, not really. There's another offender on the Jersey Mike's cheesesteak menu. The chipotle cheesesteak is pretty much a typical cheesesteak, with beef, cheese, peppers, and onions, but with the addition of a chipotle mayo — and, unfortunately, a regular-sized chipotle cheesesteak comes with more than 62 grams of fat, including 18 grams of saturated fat and just under a gram of trans fat.

If you're following a 2,000-calorie-a-day diet, the Mayo Clinic says you should be getting between 44 and 78 grams of fat per day, and no more than 22 grams of saturated fat per day.  Overconsumption can lead to a range of health problems, from heart disease to stroke. Your chipotle cheesesteak is really going to be cutting into your daily recommended allotment.

You may consider ordering a tuna fish sub at Jersey Mike's if you're trying to stay on the healthy side. Fish is great for you, and Jersey Mike's says its tuna fish salad is made fresh on-site, so you don't have to worry about some employee in the back making your sub by scooping globs of pre-made tuna salad from a giant bucket shipped from corporate. However, you should maybe worry about the type of tuna used in the sub. Jersey Mike's uses a mix of albacore and light tuna in its tuna salad, the former of which has higher mercury levels and might not be suitable for everyone, including children and pregnant women.

Beyond this, though, there's just the issue that Jersey Mike's tuna fish sub leaves a lot to be desired and is consistently cited as one of the worst subs on the menu. In a Tasting Table review that ranked popular Jersey Mike's subs, the tuna fish sandwich scored dead last. The reviewer found that the sub's tuna salad was akin to a fishy paste, with too much mayo and a lingering, less-than-desirable flavor.

Jersey Mike's does offer gluten-free sub rolls from the Udi's brand. In a world where not a ton of fast-food and casual chains offer gluten-free buns, this is great news for those who deal with a gluten sensitivity or allergy. However, if you have more than just a sensitivity, you may still, unfortunately, want to avoid Jersey Mike's gluten-free subs — and especially so if you have celiac disease and risk more than just a few extra trips to the bathroom if you consume gluten.

While Jersey Mike's employees will make your sub with a gluten-free roll, and they do go to pretty extensive lengths to make your sub on a clean surface with clean tools, your sandwich is still being potentially exposed to all sorts of gluten in the environment. For example, an employee could use a glove that's touched gluten to retrieve some toppings for a regular sandwich; then, another employee comes along and gets some of the same toppings for a gluten-free sandwich. While fresh gloves were used, there's still a risk. 

Furthermore, standards for making gluten-free subs seem to differ from chain location to chain location, and when you order online, you can't see what precautions are being taken. Ordering gluten-free at Jersey Mike's will depend on your personal risk aversion.

There's the Jersey Mike's club sub and then there's the Jersey Mike's club supreme sub, which takes things to an entirely new level of decadence, swapping out the former's ham for roast beef and the provolone for Swiss. What you end up with is a pretty stacked sub that combines roast beef, turkey, and bacon with cheesy, mayo-y goodness. You also, though, end up with more calories — to the tune of 1,140 in the club supreme sub, making this one of the more calorie-rich options among Jersey Mike's cold sandwiches.

The culprit that's adding the most calories to this sub? While the white bread technically accounts for the most calories in this menu item, the mayo accounts for nearly the same amount. If you opt to leave the mayo off this sub, you'll save yourself a cool 260 calories — and when the sub already contains Jersey Mike's olive oil blend, do you really need the mayo anyway?

If you're watching your sodium intake, it's not just Jersey Mike's cheesesteaks that you might want to steer clear of. One cold sub in particular is a heavy hitter, piling on the salt: the original Italian sub. The original Italian sub's high sodium content makes sense. This sub is layered with processed meats like ham, cappacuolo, pepperoni, salami, and prosciuttini. It all adds up to more than 2,400 milligrams of sodium in a regular-sized sub, above the recommended 2,000 milligrams or less of sodium you should consume for optimal health.

While the sodium is enough to give you pause when it comes to this sub, there's more. The amount of processed meats used should also raise an eyebrow. The World Health Organization actually considers processed meat as a Group 1 carcinogen due to the links between overconsumption of processed meats and higher risks of colorectal cancer.

The grilled Italian sub at Jersey Mike's does not fare much better. While it doesn't have as many processed meats, and just sticks with ham, pepperoni, and salami, it somehow contains even more sodium than the original Italian sub, with 2,796 milligrams in a regular-sized sub. A quick look at the nutrition facts for both subs shows that this is because, while the grilled Italian sub doesn't contain the variety of processed meats that the original Italian sub does, the former actually contains greater quantities of high-sodium processed meats, like ham.

The grilled Italian sub also contains about 100 more calories than the original Italian sub, at 1,040 — so a little over half your daily allotment if you're following a 2,000-calorie-a-day diet.

If you're really craving Italian flavors, your best bet is to simply go with what's called "the number four." This cold sub still contains cappacuolo and prosciuttini, but a lessened 1,747 milligrams of sodium (better, if not great) and 760 calories.

Order any sub sandwich at Jersey Mike's, and you'll be asked if you'd like it "Mike's Way." This signature option simply means that the sandwich will be topped with a series of certain ingredients: lettuce, tomatoes, onions, olive oil, red wine vinegar, and spices. The blend does really set these sandwiches apart from those you might get at other sub chains, and is a fan-favorite touch.

However, if you're expecting that ordering your sub Mike's Way means it will be topped with a healthful drizzle of high-quality olive oil, think again. The olive oil used on these sandwiches isn't actually pure olive oil. Instead, it's a blend that contains a vegetable oil filler — either canola or soybean oil, or both. While this might not be a big deal to some, it's definitely a big deal if you, say, have a soy allergy, you're trying to avoid highly processed food items (which vegetable oil and canola oil are), or you're trying to avoid some of the health issues that have been linked to high consumption of soybean oil — like diabetes and inflammatory bowel disease.

Not all Jersey Mike's locations serve breakfast, but if your local shop does, you are one lucky individual. Jersey Mike's breakfast sandwiches come on fresh Kaiser rolls or biscuits, contain Jersey-licious ingredients like pork roll, and are piled high with tasty toppings, just like the regular subs. However, also just as is the case with the regular subs, there are some breakfast items you might want to reconsider ordering in the future.

The cheese, ham, bacon, peppers, and mushroom breakfast sandwich may fill you up, but it's also going to fill you up with sodium. The sandwich comes with 1,789 milligrams of the stuff, mostly due to the bread and bacon. It's definitely not a great way to start your day. The chain's pork roll, egg, and cheese sandwich isn't far behind, either, due to the high amount of sodium in pork roll, a ham-like processed meat that's a New Jersey specialty.

While no one (most likely) is going to Jersey Mike's for the dessert alone, it's oh-so-easy to tack a cookie, brownie, or other sweet treat on to your order after you make your way down the counter. However, as you peruse your options, you might want to avoid the chocolatey, chocolate chip-filled brownies. While deliciously decadent, these brownies bring a lot of sugar to the party, at 47 grams each.

Not entirely sure how much sugar that really is? Well, consider that 1 teaspoon is equal to 4 grams of sugar. Essentially, then, when you eat a Jersey Mike's brownie, you're eating the equivalent of about 12 teaspoons of sugar. That's a lot of sugar, and definitely more than the 30 grams of sugar that adults are advised to limit their intake to each day. In comparison, Jersey Mike's chocolate chunk cookies have less than ½ that amount of sugar, and Jersey Mike's gluten-free snickerdoodles have about ⅓ of that amount of sugar.

Let's say you've read all of the above and now you're really eager to avoid some of the least healthy options on the Jersey Mike's menu. You're trying to stick to what seems healthiest — like a veggie sub. There are no processed meats and vegetables are healthy, so you'd assume this is a good choice. However, while it might not be bad, health-wise, the veggie sub at Jersey Mike's isn't exactly rave-worthy.

Jersey Mike's describes its veggie sub as "full of flavor," but we'd have to disagree. Containing onions, tomatoes, lettuce, bell peppers, and two types of cheese, the sub has been described as unimpressive and nothing to get excited about. To really make this sub interesting, you have to roll up your sleeves and start requesting that the chain add on a bunch more ingredients. Otherwise, you have the equivalent of a sad salad on a bun.

Sometimes, simplicity is best. Combining just two or three ingredients between two slices of bread can make for a fantastic meal. Peanut butter and jelly. Ham and Swiss.

Unfortunately, the ham and provolone sub at Jersey Mike's does not manage to accomplish this level of perfection. Instead, this sub is as bland as it gets. The ham? Boring. The provolone? Tasteless. If you don't get the sub Mike's Way, it's even worse, because then you really do just have bland ham and bland cheese between two slices of bread. The general consensus also notes that you don't even get that much ham on the sandwich, and this is a sub that's best left to the pickiest of eaters.

If you want something simple at Jersey Mike's, avoid this sub and go for one of the very similar options on the menu, like the "super sub," which still has the provolone and ham but adds prosciuttini and cappacuolo for extra flavor and texture.