What Happened To Subway's Meatballs? Why Customers Think They Shrunk

The meatball marinara sub at Subway has been a staple menu item since the early 1990s. The sandwich chain uses Italian-style beef and pork meatballs smothered in marinara sauce with your choice of veggies, usually served toasted with melted cheese. What's not to love? Apparently, the size of the meatballs. Regular Subway customers have taken to Reddit to complain about the reportedly smaller meatballs as of late (though employees say they skip the sandwich altogether regardless of the meatballs' size).

There are several threads dedicated to the topic of Subway's meatball size. On one, a recent customer said: "Wow, went for the first time in years today (mainly because the prices are so high now). But I really was craving a good old meatball sub. The meatballs are tiny!! Not only that the bread was small too!" On another thread, one person complained, "Their meatballs might as well be used to fill the cracks in the sidewalk."

Some fondly remembered the massive meatballs that Subway served in years past. "They used to be massive, almost tennis ball sized. Definitely smaller," said one commenter. Over on Instagram, someone commented on a video of a meatball sub: "Remember when Subway used big meatballs?" And someone replied, "twice the size for [$5] too lmao." These comments made us curious. Did Subway actually decrease the size of its meatballs, or, as often happens, are the memories of the general public skewed in some way?

According to Subway commercials we found via YouTube from the 1990s, the sub did look a bit different. For one, the cheese was added to the bun underneath the meatballs, and the marinara sauce looks more brown than red. However, because of the up-close shot of the meatball sub that the chain preferred to use in commercials, it's hard to get a read on the size of the meatballs. In the styled photo from a 2026 Subway press release of the meatball sub, it does appear to have much more sauce than in ads from the '90s, and the meatballs look more spread out, while in the older ads, they completely fill up the bread.

All we know for sure is that the meatball sub that customers receive at Subway doesn't look anything like these ads. And that's typical, as there are many tips and tricks professional food stylists use when making ads for restaurant chains. In fact, in the past, there's been some truly bizarre vintage commercials. If you're concerned about the amount of meat you're getting on your meatball sub, another thing we learned from Reddit, is that you can order it with "double meat" — that's 16 balls on a foot long!