8 Chain Restaurants With The Best Corned Beef Sandwiches

It's not hard to find a sandwich place that offers ham and turkey as options. Those are pretty much the standard meat choices for deli sandwiches, subs, and melts. Once you get into the beefs, the choices thin out a bit more — roast beef is tougher to come by, but not nearly as hard as corned beef. Other than places that feature corned beef and/or Reuben sandwiches as limited-time seasonal options around St. Patrick's Day, you won't find either one on the permanent menu of too many places.

So just finding chain restaurants that have any sort of non-seasonal corned beef sandwich in the first place proved tricky. But we did indeed come up with such a list. From that point, we then narrowed things down to the corned beef sandwiches that were actually truly tasty, and that's what we present below. The selections are a combination of Reubens, other varieties of corned beef sandwiches, and those that contain another meat but still have corned beef as a primary component.

To make the list, the corned beef itself had to be tasty, juicy, and high quality first and foremost. From there, we considered the bread, toppings, and other meats if applicable, and judged the entire sandwich as a complete product. For places that have multiple corned beef sandwiches, they all had to be good — quantity over quality doesn't hack it with us.

Initially just a Philadelphia-based mini chain, Primo Hoagies has since expanded to nine states all up and down the East Coast. That has given many more people the chance to check out this great sandwich chain, which customers commend for its high-quality meats and delicious sesame-seeded bread. Primo is also among only a select few sub chains that keep corned beef as a permanent menu item — specifically, its corned beef Schwartzie.

Containing sliced-to-order corned beef along with coleslaw, Swiss cheese, and Russian dressing, the corned beef Schwartzie is similar to a classic Reuben but with two important twists. First, it has Primo's signature seeded bun rather than rye bread. But secondly and most crucially, the coleslaw stands in for the sauerkraut. Those changes make a corned beef Schwartzie a sandwich all its own, praised for its premium corned beef and the way the components perfectly complement it.

If you are lucky enough to live near a Primo and you haven't tried it yet, the corned beef Schwartzie is a solid choice to start with, as it's a great representation of what Primo excels at: Making classic sandwiches and making them well, with just the slightest little tweaks to make them stand out. The other two varieties of Schwartzie are turkey and roast beef, and both are great as well, but you can get turkey and roast beef sandwiches anywhere. Corned beef, not so much. 

When ranking Arby's sandwiches, we put the chain's corned beef Reuben as second only to the classic Beef 'N Cheddar as its best offering. The chain has always been at its best when it remains in its original lane of sliced deli meat sandwiches. And Arby's has had a lot of great sandwiches of that type over the years. But other than the roast beef that made it famous, we feel that the absolute tastiest thing on the Arby's menu is its Reuben.

Like all of Arby's deli sandwich offerings, its Reuben comes with an extremely generous layer of well-textured corned beef. Even between the surprisingly thick slices of marbled rye bread — which in and of itself is something of an impressively fancy component for a fast food joint — we love how the flavor of the corned beef explodes with every bite. A mighty fine tangy sauerkraut and nice slice of Swiss cheese make the already piled-high sandwich even taller. And given that we already love the chain's fantastic array of tasty, premium sauces, it's not a surprise that Arby's Thousand Island is likewise creamy and flavorful.

Perhaps most shocking of all is that an Arby's corned beef Reuben even looks impressive in person, per customers, which can rarely be said for many fast food sandwiches — and certainly isn't always true of Arby's own delicious but often messy-looking roast beef sandwiches. 

Obviously, the chain restaurants that are more specifically deli-focused will have the best chance of delivering a top-notch corned beef sandwich. To that point, McAlister's Deli — noteworthy for being one of the chain restaurants with the best club sandwiches — ups its game to feel far more fast casual than baseline fast food, and it certainly shows in its two fantastic corned beef offerings.

Closing in on 600 locations that extend out across 31 states at the time of writing, there's a decent chance that a McAlister's Deli is either close to where you live or is just a short detour off wherever your next road trip might take you. And if you aren't lucky enough to live in a city where the deli GOATs are located, McAlister's is a suitable stand-in. More to the point, if you're looking for corned beef sandwiches, the chain has you covered in that department with two fantastic, premium-quality offerings.

McAlister's offers the traditional Reuben with Swiss, sauerkraut, and Thousand Island on marbled rye. It's the kind of Reuben that McAlister's patrons become fiercely loyal to and order nothing else. There is also the New Yorker, which couples corned beef with pastrami and is also paired with Swiss on marbled rye — but there's no sauerkraut, and spicy brown mustard is the condiment. We say you can't go wrong with either, but New Yorkers are even rarer than Reubens among chain restaurants, so go with that if uniqueness is the goal.

Admittedly, you would be lucky to find a Bennigan's today in comparison to its '80s/'90s heyday. After going bankrupt in 2008 and closing all of its corporate locations shortly thereafter, Bennigan's seemed doomed to become another defunct chain. However, the brand has slowly been rebuilding, and 25 Bennigan's restaurants have since reopened worldwide (including 10 in the U.S.). And back on the menu at the revived Bennigan's is the chain's classic Reuben.

Sandwich-wise, Bennigan's was always more famous for its self-proclaimed "world famous" Monte Cristo, but frequent visitors knew not to sleep on the Reuben. After all, the whole gimmick of Bennigan's is that it mixes the cuisine and atmosphere of an American casual dining restaurant and an Irish pub. So of course, there needs to be corned beef on the menu. While that manifests in tasty seasonal offerings like the Reuben fritters (corned beef, Swiss cheese, and cream cheese in deep-fried Panko balls) and Reuben burger (exactly what it sounds like), the Classic Reuben steps up appropriately for an Irish-themed eatery. And it's a permanent menu item.

It doesn't do anything special or unique like the two aforementioned dishes, but we are big fans of it for being a classic, well-made Reuben that feels a bit heartier and of higher quality than most of the others on this list, due to it not being from a fast food or fast casual chain. The sandwich also gets props for using real corned beef instead of its deli equivalent. 

Culver's might give its ButterBurgers prime billing on most signage and advertising, but the chain is known for an impressive variety of food options. Even just considering sandwiches in particular, Culver's has always offered premium options that you don't typically find at a fast casual chain, from its delicious and hearty pot roast sandwich to the now-discontinued prime rib sandwich and more. Not discontinued, nor even seasonal, is another surprise — a grilled Reuben melt that doesn't disappoint on the quality, taste, and freshness that Culver's customers know from its other sandwiches.

As its name implies, the rye bread is indeed buttered and grilled, which is the traditional method of preparing a Reuben but a step that not all restaurants take. Doing so not only warms up the high-quality corned beef nicely, but it also melts the Swiss cheese into an ooey-gooey goodness that people love. And that's because this being Culver's means that it isn't just any old cheese but premium Wisconsin Swiss cheese, and that difference definitely comes through in the creamy goodness of the cheese.

Honestly, the sandwich would've been amazing if they stopped there, but the sauerkraut and Thousand Island bring it all together in what we say is the best Reuben you can find from a chain of this size, and that isn't 100% deli sandwich-forward. And while sides aren't the point here, always be sure you get the cheese curds with your Culver's Reuben. We simply couldn't resist saying that. 

Another sub shop with a must-have corned beef sandwich is Firehouse Subs. From its humble beginnings as one of several swings on the road to entrepreneurship that finally hit for a pair of brothers from a family of firefighters to a chain of restaurants with nearly 1,500 locations as of this writing, Firehouse Subs has become a real powerhouse in the sandwich chain space. And while it's hard to narrow down what to order given how many unique and delicious offerings are available, especially for a first-timer, the New York Steamer is a great choice whether you're a rookie or a veteran.

While Firehouse only offers white and wheat sub rolls, we don't miss the fancier bread options once we bite into a New York Steamer's savory layers of hot corned beef brisket, pastrami, and melted provolone — Swiss cheese used to be an option but has apparently been discontinued entirely. Likewise, the fact that the default New York Steamer is finished with basic mayo, mustard, and Italian dressing also won't disappoint anyone but the most hardcore devotee of the traditional New Yorker sandwich.

If you absolutely must have sauerkraut, Swiss cheese, and Thousand Island/Russian dressing on your corned beef, Firehouse's New Yorker isn't the sandwich for you. But if you're open to a more classic American sub shop take on a New Yorker, you'll be pleasantly surprised by how well all the components work on this exceptional sandwich, one of those "we get it every time we go" types of sandwiches.

Jason's Deli isn't quite as prevalent as McAlister's Deli, with fewer than half the locations and in fewer states. This means it will be more difficult to try the former's two corned beef options unless you happen to live near one of its locations. But Jason's corned beef offerings typically win out over McAlister's in direct comparisons, and we would agree with that assessment. Indeed, both Jason's Reuben the Great and New York Yankee beat out McAlister's own versions of those respective sandwiches in not just quality but most certainly quantity. 

In fact, compare the photo above of Jason's Reuben the Great to the pictures of any of the other sandwiches in this feature. In some cases, Jason's is literally twice as tall, with some customers saying it's actually big enough to share. But lest you think the flavors aren't balanced between the monster stack of thinly-sliced corned beef and the smaller proportions of sauerkraut, Swiss, Thousand Island, and rye bread, nothing could be further from the truth. It's a meaty bite, to be sure, but a delicious one that brings all the components together as it should for one incredible sandwich.

The same applies to the New York Yankee, which has an equally ridiculous stack of both corned beef and pastrami plus Swiss and rye. There's no sauerkraut, and you can choose the condiment — we recommend the spicy mustard. It's still delicious, though mileage may vary for traditional corned beef sandwich lovers given the less specifically curated components. 

Last but certainly not least, we have the underrated sandwich chain Penn Station East Coast Subs, which offers more individual permanent corned beef sandwich options than any other restaurant on this list. In fact, you'd be hard-pressed to find any sandwich shop, chain or otherwise, that has so many sandwich options that are either built around or offer the option of corned beef. But that's what Penn Station, a Reuben lover's paradise, brings to the table.

In addition to a grilled Reuben sub, Penn Station has both grilled and cold versions of a traditional Reuben. On top of that, there is also a Reuben wrap — something we've never seen any other restaurant offer, chain or otherwise — and you can choose corned beef as one of the options if you choose to create your own cold sub. We don't have the space to fully praise each one individually, but customers say the corned beef is delicious and made to perfection. This applies to other sandwiches — either thinly sliced or in meatier hunks depending on the item. The corned beef is also plentiful and is a treat whether it's on the sub roll, the nine-grain bread, or encased in the cheddar jalapeño tortilla.

As far as which we recommend, the grilled Reuben sub is our favorite (especially because of the thicker chunks of corned beef), but we also encourage you to try the wrap for something unique but still plenty tasty.

The choices in this list are based on a combination of my own tastes and experience, as well as feedback culled from across the internet — food reviews, social media posts, Reddit threads, etc. With that in mind, the corned beef itself was always the starting point. Subpar corned beef rescued by other components excluded a sandwich from this list. So once it was determined the corned beef was good, I then judged the taste, presentation, portion size, and price/value of the overall sandwich. And if everything scored well in all those categories, and as long as the sandwich was currently part of the chain's permanent menu, the chains that served those sandwiches made the cut.