Kosher Subway Comes to Overland Park, KS!!!

amother

Tue, Jul 10 2007, 1:53 pm

Family plans kosher Subway restaurant here

By: Barbara Bayer, Staff Writer

The first freestanding, kosher Subway sandwich restaurant outside of the Chasidic enclave of Crown Heights is now being planned for Overland Park. The restaurant, which franchisees Joan and Roger Fogel prefer to call a Subway that happens to be kosher, could open as early as August.

Joan Fogel said the lease for the planned restaurant space, near College Boulevard and Lamar Avenue, is awaiting approval by Subway. The deal was handled by John Rubenstein of Rubenstein Real Estate.

Joan Fogel said there are two other Subways serving kosher menus in Cleveland and Brooklyn, N.Y.

“Nothing is like Kansas City,” she said. “The Cleveland one is in the JCC building. The New York one is in Crown Heights, so again you have a captive community. Ours will be the first one in the Midwest.”

The owners plan to appeal to families.

“We want to have quality fast food that is really healthy and provide a quality eating experience. We're not just targeting the kosher population or the Jewish population,” Joan Fogel said.

In keeping with kosher dietary laws, the menu at the Fogels' Subway restaurant will feature meat and pareve fare; no dairy items will be served. With certain modifications, like omitting pork-based products and using soy-based cheese substitutes, the menu is virtually identical to that of any other Subway restaurant, with hot and cold sandwiches and salads.

Because the cost and perceived quality of kosher meat is higher than that of non-kosher meat, Joan Fogel said, the new store's sandwiches would be slightly more expensive than the non-kosher versions.

“We're working really hard to try to keep the prices reasonable for a family,” she said.

In addition to a standard, green and yellow Subway sign, the Fogels' franchise will have a secondary window sign identifying it as a gourmet kosher deli.

“We will need something that sets it apart. We will have our own coupons and our own specials,” Joan Fogel said.

The restaurant owners have already had discussions with officials of the local Vaad HaKashruth and will seek its supervision and certification.

The restaurant will be closed on Shabbat, Passover and other Jewish holidays. It will even have a sukkah for use during Sukkot.

“We will have someone on the premises any time we are open who is an approved person through the Vaad,” Joan Fogel said.

Joan Fogel said that before the Subway in Cleveland opened last summer, its operators developed certain operating protocols, which they have shared with the Fogels and which the Fogels intend to follow here.

Subway bread is kosher, as it is. So are many condiments. The Fogels are still searching for a suitable kosher meat distributor.

Once the lease is signed, Roger Fogel said, a contractor will be engaged to make the space ready for the restaurant. In addition, the Fogels are working to obtain the required city approvals in anticipation of an August opening.

Why now?

The Fogels spend a lot of their time volunteering in the Jewish and general communities. Joan Fogel is a special-education consultant, and Roger Fogel worked in the pharmaceutical-manufacturing industry. Joan Fogel said she and her husband have talked about opening a restaurant for a long time.

“We liked the idea of inclusion, a place where anyone can come and eat,” she said.

She said they never pursued the idea of opening a kosher restaurant while Irv's Market was open because “they had a community gathering place.”

Now, they are almost de-emphasizing the concept of the Subway being kosher.

“If you look at the history of kosher restaurants, they haven't been very successful here or in St. Louis, where I grew up,” Joan Fogel said. “You need to have a product that appeals to lots of people; not just Jewish people. So this will have the highest quality of meats. It will be very healthy. We will be washing and slicing our own vegetables. We'll have soy-based cheeses. And everybody that works there will be friend or family.”

The Fogels are members of Congregation Beth Torah, and their two daughters graduated from the Hyman Brand Hebrew Academy. Kim is married to Rabbi Ben Kopelman, the mashgiach (kosher supervisor) at the Hen House at 11721 Roe Ave., which has a kosher bakery and which expanded its kosher deli department when Irv's Market lost its certification earlier this year.

Younger daughter Leslie Fogel just graduated from Rice University.

Becoming a Subway

Later this month, Roger and Joan Fogel plan to travel to Subway corporate headquarters in Milford, Conn., to attend franchisee school. During that time, they also plan to visit the kosher Subway in Brooklyn.

Joan Fogel said the family plans to offer catering and delivery services, and they'll have a seating area that can be reserved for private gatherings like classes and meetings.

Rabbi Herbert Mandl, senior rabbi at Kehilath Israel Synagogue and chairman of the Vaad, noted this new kosher restaurant would be near the Overland Park Convention Center, which was built with a full kosher kitchen.

“This is equally amazing, and hopefully will be supported by the community,” said Rabbi Mandl. “It gives observant Jews another place to eat. … They are talking about being opening Saturday nights in the winter and all kinds of cool stuff.”

Popularity of kosher Subways

Les Winograd, Subway's corporate public relations coordinator, said the company expects about 15 kosher Subways to be open by the end of the year in New York, New Jersey, Los Angeles, south Florida and “other parts of the country that would surprise you.”

Winograd said that after the kosher Subway opened last year in Cleveland, interest in opening similar stores elsewhere soared, partly due to Subway's reputation for offering a healthier alternative to “traditionally greasy, fatty fast food.”

“A lot of consumers who follow strict kosher diets don't necessarily eat at brand fast-food chains,” Winograd said. “It's a vast, untapped market.”

He said both of the kosher Subways now open are “extremely popular and accepted by their communities.”

“It gives the people who keep strict kosher the opportunity to have other choices. Especially the younger people who see the commercials on TV, they can actually try the food now. But we believe the people who don't kept strict kosher will want to try it out, and they'll probably like it,” Winograd said.