Firehouse Subs Is Known For Sandwiches — But Its First Order Wasn't One

Firehouse Subs is one of our favorite sandwich chains, ranking sixth out of 21 national sandwich chains. While they offer soups and salads, Firehouse Subs' sandwiches are what keep customers coming back time and again. Ironically, Firehouse Subs began with an order that wasn't a sub, but a hot dog.

In an interview for the Jacksonville Daily Record, owners and founders Robin and Chris Sorensen said that the first order on Firehouse Subs' opening day in 1994 was for "two hot dogs with everything added, which was about 10 ingredients." To that effect, a 2021 article from Firehouse Subs' own website stated that the hot dog was a menu item known as "the 'Dalmatian Dog' which consisted of an all-beef hot dog served with a choice of chili, relish, cheese, slaw, onions, mustard, ketchup on a poppy seed bun." The all-beef dog and a poppy seed bun are benchmarks of a classic Chicago-style dog, while onions, slaw and chili represent other regional styles of hot dogs such as Coney Island or the South. We applaud the diverse range of toppings, but such a tall order threw the owners for a loop because, as the Sorensens said, "we were so focused on the subs, we weren't prepared for that order. It was a long ticket time." Luckily subs eventually became their customers' primary request and the reason for Firehouse Subs' wild success.

While Firehouse Subs' first order was for hot dogs, the founders were clearly expecting subs to be first and foremost on customers' minds. To that effect, you won't find a hot dog on Firehouse Subs' menu today, or most other sandwich chains for that matter. This begs the highly controversial question: are hot dogs considered sandwiches? Answers are as split as the roll these dogs are served on.

According to the dictionary, hot dogs are a sandwich; the Miriam-Webster dictionary defines a sandwich as "two or more slices of bread or a split roll having a filling in between." However, the late and great Anthony Bourdain stood on the opposite side of the sandwich debate. In an "Ask Me Anything" Reddit thread, Bourdain said, "if you were to [walk] into any vendor of fine hot dogs and ask for a hot dog sandwich, they would probably report you to the FBI. As they should." Even a poll done by The Today Show indicated that nearly 80% of people around the U.S. do not think hot dogs are a type of sandwich. Still, we pooled other celebrity chefs, including Duff Goldman, Andrew Zimmern, and Alex Guarnaschelli, all of whom think that the hot dog is, in fact, a sandwich. As Zimmern put it when we posed the question to him on X, "Bread + Meat = sandwich so of course it is." After all, Firehouse's meatball subs are even served hot dog-style, in a split bun smothered with marinara.