Quotes from Fred DeLuca

I was 17 years old when I built the first store... A very simple, basic store with a basic counter - not very much equipment, all purchased second-hand. And the menu was very simple.

If you have company-owned stores, you make 100 percent of the profit from each one, but you have less entrepreneurial spirit.

Because the stores worked, franchisees wanted to build more stores. If your model works, folks who are happy with it will buy out the ones who aren't happy.

After 39 years of business, I'm still learning. I go through this every year -identifying new strategies that are extremely important.

A couple times a year, I get in the car, and I'll drive 1,000 miles cross-country, going through side streets. I'll stay off the highways as much as possible. And I realize it's a huge country, and for us to be in so many places in the country is an amazing thing.

In some markets, we don't have a lot of room to expand. We've done studies of store density and essentially found our more dense markets have more than one store per 15,000 people.

Back when we started, people didn't even know what a submarine sandwich was. The product was only sold in a few markets.

Subway is a real point of pride. We have influenced the way people eat.

There may be a perception that, with franchises, they're all the same, so that limits the ability to experiment. But that's not true. We've always kept two slots open on the menu of each Subway franchise - slots that franchisees can use to come up with their own sandwich ideas.

I don't have any interest in cashing out or leaving the business or doing something else. I just love Subway, and I want to keep focusing on the company for the benefit of all our franchise owners. So I'm kind of like married to the job.

From my point of view, what I really like, what I think is really terrific about my work, is that the company's had the opportunity to train literally thousands and thousands of brand new franchisees to successfully run their very first business.

I don't think I ever dreamt of going into business. No one in my family was in business.