Gracie Gioiosa

Eat Fresh. The iconic Subway logo hangs on the wall inside the location on 25th Ave. This location offered the foot-long churro and pretzel but unfortunately were out of the cookies.

In December, Subway unleashed “the world’s first” foot-long cookies at select locations in major cities like Chicago, Miami, New York and Dallas in honor of National Cookie Day. On Jan. 22, the popular hoagie chain added the foot-long cookies to Subway menus nationwide. The new menu, known as the “Subway Sidekicks”, also includes a foot-long pretzel and a foot-long churro. On Feb. 24, two of the Mountain Echo reporters went to Subway on 25th Ave and reviewed the new additions to the menu.

Before meeting at Subway, we called around to make sure they were stocked up. Out of all the Subways in Altoona, only one had one foot-long cookie left. We asked them if they could hold onto it for us, but that was not possible, so unfortunately we did not get to try it. 

“We get a truck of supplies on Wednesdays, so we might get more of them. They’re probably a 9/10, so you’ll have to come back to try one,” one Subway employee we spoke to said. 

We walked into Subway around 5:15 p.m., and the person in front of us ordered a foot-long churro along with a sub. Because there were no cookies available, we just ordered a foot-long pretzel and churro which made our total $5- the pretzel was $3 and the churro was $2.

It only took about five minutes for both to be ready, and a worker brought them to our table. We decided to try the pretzel that came with a honey mustard sauce first, but before doing so, we measured it to make sure it lived up to its name. Thankfully for Subway, we did not have to file a lawsuit because it was in fact 12-inches. The website describes the pretzel as “a twist of Auntie Anne’s”; here is our review if it lives up to its hype… 

Charlie’s review: I have never eaten a soft pretzel and thought it wasn’t average; this one was no exception. I mean, of course, it was cool it was a foot long and was easily split into smaller portions, but it just didn’t live up the standard. It had a nice amount of salt and was chewy and soft when we first opened it, but after about five minutes of sitting there, it started to dry out. After a few minutes, it wasn’t as enjoyable and honestly I was expecting more out of the foot-long pretzel. The honey mustard sauce was a bit odd and not the flavor I was expecting. Overall, I have to give the foot-long pretzel a 5/10. (Also they advertise it as having a “twist of Auntie Anne’s”…didn’t taste anything like it.) 

Gracie’s review: When I eat a pretzel, I’m not looking for anything wild, honestly, I prefer it to be simple. To satisfy my pretzel eating experience, I’m only asking for a few things – it has to be salty and have a distinctive crust with a soft, chewy interior without being overly dense. From what I could gather, it seemed like the salt was put on them after they were baked. I think the workers knew this would cause salt to not stick to the pretzel, which made them put on a bunch of excess salt that inevitably fell all over the place and wouldn’t be as necessary if the salt was baked on. Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I think all this salt was a ruse to distract from the fact there was not even a hint of that iconic “pretzel taste” that you get by boiling the dough in baking soda or lye. Especially after the initial wow factor wore off, the pretzel just tasted like some dense bread drenched in salt mixed with can’t believe it’s not butter. My final qualm with the foot-long pretzel is you had to eat it really fast, or it went dry. To do away with some of the dryness, we used the free honey mustard sauce provided. My first impression of the sauce was quite promising – it smelled quite mustard-y and I was hopeful the little mustard seeds in the sauce would add a redeeming quality. Unfortunately for my taste, there was more of a honey than of a mustard taste that I cannot get behind. Even though I didn’t like the sauce, if it’s free it’s for me, so overall it’s a net gain. Also on the plus side for Subway, the little divots in the pretzel made it really easy to pull apart and portion in a group setting. Combined with the fact that it’s a foot-long pretzel (so fun) for two dollars I rate the foot-long pretzel a 4.5/10. 

The next thing up on our menu was the foot-long churro. Using our extremely precise measuring tools of Charlie’s knuckles and Gracie’s measuring app, we found the churro was only 11 inches (what a disappointment that was). Even with this false advertising, we still gave the churro that’s “baked to perfection, served warm and topped with Cinnabon’s world-famous Makara® cinnamon and sugar,” a try. 

Charlie’s Review: I love myself a sweet treat with a meal, and the churro definitely provided something sweet to end a meal. When you go to Subway, you usually look for a classic cookie if you’re in the mood for dessert. By adding this churro to the menu, they are adding variety and letting customers have more choices. If you have ever had the foot-long churro from Sam’s Club…I’ll let you know they taste pretty much the same. It had a nice, sweet cinnamon flavor and a buttery aftertaste. I liked the churro as a fresh perspective on the stereotypical cookie at Subway. Overall, I feel it deserves a 7/10. 

Gracie’s Review: As a lover of all things cinnamon, it may surprise you that I’ve never had perhaps the most infamous cinnamon-y thing out there – a churro. I had no clue what to expect from this “Cinnabon inspired” churro but  to my untrained taste buds, this churro was very good. It was served warm, and I hate it when there’s not a mountain of cinnamon-sugar on cinnamon-sugar foods. This churro did not disappoint on that front. Even though a good amount of seasoning fell off and stuck to our fingers, because they put on a lot there, there was still a respectable amount of seasoning left on the churro, so I was not mad about it. In the actual seasoning concoction, I would have preferred a higher ratio of cinnamon; however, the cinnamon they had felt quality so it evened out. The inside of the churro reminded me of a French cruller doughnut because it was almost eggy and spongy (in a good way). Same with the pretzel though, I do have to say this churro got that stale feeling quickly after we ripped into it. Again to fix the dryness and just to make sure we did a fair comparison we made the decision to sample the sauce with the churro. I must say that because the honey mustard had so much honey it didn’t taste all that bad, but by no means was it good. I think the churro should be offered with a special sauce like the pretzel. Now I am no connoisseur of churros, but I must say I thought this foot long one was quite tasty. I rate Subway’s churro an 8/10.

Since we were all familiar with the delight that is a Subway chocolate chip cookie, we were thoroughly disappointed they didn’t have the foot-long version in stock. This shortage was not unique to the Subway location we went to either. Prior to going, we called around to all the local Subways and none had the cookie available. However, the sandwich artist that we were able to speak with said they usually restock every Wednesday. The lack of arguably the best Subway menu item definitely affects our overall rating of our foot-long experience. So taking this into account, our overall rating is a 7/10.