Woman Cashes In All Her Points For A Sandwich At Jimmy John’s. There’s Just 1 Problem: ‘This Is Why I Like Jersey Mikes’

A Jimmy John’s customer believes she got shafted with stale bread after using all her rewards points to buy a sandwich.

Raquel Contreras (@raquelcontreras925) uploaded an ASMR-style video online to demonstrate the audible knocking the bread makes whenever she strikes it.

“When you finally use your rewards for a free sandwich, and they give you last week’s bread!” a text overlay in the video reads.

In order to drive that point home, Contreras repeatedly taps her finger against the loaf given to her for the sandwich. Each time she hits the food, it makes a loud “thock” sound. In a caption for the post, she said it was “the hardest bread ever.”

One person in the comments section who claimed to be a former Jimmy John’s employee said that serving up stale bread was intentional. “They have a whole tray of old bread that they keep in the back specifically for people who use rewards. Because ‘you get what you pay for’ per Jimmy John himself. I know because I used to work there,” they alleged.

Jimmy John’s Same Day Bread Policy

However, the restaurant franchise indicates on its website that fresh bread is baked in its stores every single day. “Our French bread and wheat sandwich bread are baked right in the store where you can see it. French bread is baked all day every day, every 4 hours,” the site reads.

Furthermore, Jimmy John’s writes, “And we bake bread all day, every day because stale bread isn’t bread, it’s … croutons.”

Consequently, sandwiches are supposed to be made with these fresh loaves.

So what happens with the bread that isn’t used for sandwiches the same day they’re baked? These items are placed in the “day-old” category, which customers are able to purchase at a discount. According to Mashed, purchasing a fresh loaf from a Jimmy John’s location costs around $3. However, if you peruse day-old wares, you may be able to nab them for half the price.

In fact, this influencer recorded himself walking into a Jimmy John’s to check out their day-old bread for himself. And he nabbed three loaves for 50 cents a piece, coming to a grand total of $1.59. In the clip, he echoes other reports that franchises can only make sandwiches with bread that was “made in the same day.”

What Happens To The Day-Old Bread?

And there have been others who’ve reported that, like many restaurants, Jimmy John’s will often toss out these loaves. Reddit users in this r/Anticonsumption sub post discussed this phenomenon after a discussion was sparked by the original poster. They wrote, “Jimmy Johns throws away fresh bread daily.”

Another person corroborated this, stating that this is even with a day-old bread policy. They wrote, “Former employee. They all do this. They throw away extra when there is too much to save for ‘day olds’. They also throw away the day olds at the end of the day.”

But there were those who praised the chain’s policy for allowing visitors to buy day-old bread at a steep discount. “The ones by me sell day old bread for super cheap if you ask at the counter. Great for making garlic bread or other toasted bread type things,” another said.

Cheap Fast-Food Hack?

If gluten and carbs are your thing, there’s no shortage of folks who’ve devised a number of meals ways frugal shoppers can create with Jimmy John’s day-old bread. Cheapism calls the “dirt cheap” bargain an “amazing” prospect. The outlet even adds that the bread can be frozen and used at a later time, but that it does get a bit tough after it’s thawed. As for what it can be used for: getting a large French loaf for 50 cents means you can make your own custom sandwiches at home, garlic bread, or the centerpiece of a large sub sandwich you can enjoy for a day out.

Thrillist recommends cutting the bread up into pieces to make into an Italian panzanella salad. Or cracking a few eggs and dicing up vegetables with these same loaf shards to concoct a strata. The website says these loaves make for a great French bread pizza, or they can be hollowed out to sneak alcohol into events.

 

As for why Contreras’ bread was stale? It could be that a Jimmy John’s employee may’ve either accidentally, or intentionally, picked a day-old loaf to use for her rewards meal.  BroBible has reached out to Jimmy John’s via email regarding that possibility.