What the hell is going on? Every Subway I go to has turned into a ‘Subber’, and it may just be my prejudiced insistence on having what I’m used to, but I don’t think thery’re as good.
Not happy.
Go to the Subber on Heping/Dun’hua and check out the poster on the back wall, for the rationale used in “changing” from Subway to Subber.
Interesting fodder.
Is Subber an American franchise as well? Never heard of it; maybe I’ve just been here too long. My first thought was that they changed it to avoid paying franchise licensing fees to Subway anymore.
Interested,
CK
Bingo!
Can you share with us? I’m really curious. If it’s just to get out of paying franchise fees, then fuck 'em - I’m boycotting. :raspberry: They knew what they were getting into when they became franchisees. Unless there’s some other information that I’m not privy to. Tigerman, you must know a thing or two about what’s going on. Spill the beans! 
and surely this is some licencing type breach…?
I don’t know what they’ve posted on the back wall of their store. But I can tell you that the primary, if not the only reason that franchisees (all over the world) leave Subway, is to avoid paying royalties.
Any other grievances they may have should be settled by other means…
At my school the grammar focus recently has been comparatives and superlatives. For example, the comparative of the adjective “big” is “bigger.” So I can’t help but subconciously think that Subber is the comparative of “sub.” As a prefix, this of course means “under” or “below.”
Are they trying to warn us that their food is now sub-quality?
Although I don’t find that the food is noticeably worse than before the name change, it does still bother me immensely that they’ve changed the name.
I noticed, too, that the paper they use to wrap the sandwiches in are thinner. The last time I went in, the girl tried for a full minute to pick one up from a stack in her plastic-gloved hand. Evenutally she had to take the glove off. I never noticed this when they were Subway.
They will eventually run out of all stock that they have of Subway supplies… bread, meats, etc…
Then, the differences should be more marked.
Maoman,
I understand brand loyalty and your right to boycott, but doesn’t the franchise have the right to choose whether they want to continue to use the licensed product or make a go of it under their own name, however similiar and blatantly referential to ‘Subway’ the new name is?
Confused,
CK
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In many cases, these owners continue to use the licensed product w/o paying royalties for at least a period of time.
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A franchise agreement does not merely give one the right to use a licensed product… it also teaches and licenses a business method.
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The franchisee is also entitled to purchase certain equipment, which he would not be entitled to as a non-franchisee… I suspect the subber owners are still using such equipment, such as the oven.
It is all too common, especially here in Taiwan. Comapany A spends time, effort and money to develop a product and process… then decides to license Taiwan owner to use the process to sell the product.
In a short time, Taiwan owner decides that the process really isn’t that difficult and that he probably would have or could have thought of the same had he wanted to… thus he decides to break his franchise agreement.
I don’t think its fair at all… whether a licensee decides to break his agreement with a company that licenses know-how in electronic technologies or one that licenses a know-how in a process of making sandwiches and running the sandwich business.
I’m pretty sure they DON’T have the right - that is, any franchise worth its salt would have covered that eventuality in a contract. I know for a fact that’s why we no longer have Church’s Texas-Fried Chicken in Taiwan - the franchisees now call it Gold-N-Tex Chicken. I refuse to eat there. Contempt for the law isn’t going to win Taiwan any new international friends, that’s for sure.
They have a chopped sausage sandwich that I like at Subber that I never saw in Subway, so I’ve been happily buying there.
You bunch of super-subber-snubbers you !
I do agree with Tigerman’s comments about breaking agreements, but I’d just comment that my understanding is that Subway gets more complaints and has more conflicts with franchisees than any other major franchising organization in the States. I know I read this recently, just can’t remember where. Not a defense but something one might want to consider when thinking about setting up this kind of business.
I still eat at the “real” one, though…the meat is weird at the “converted” one near my house. 
Tigerman,
You sound quite familiar with franchise contracting; I am not. What I’m wondering is, if a person did have a franchise and decided he wanted to legally sever all relations with the parent company, which would include not using their name, menu, packaging, etc., does that still mean that he can’t serve up a similar product under a different guise irregardless of whether it is underhanded or deceptive?
Curious,
CK
Witness the rampant rise of KLC (obvious ripping off their look & name from KFC) as well. These kind of ‘almost the same name, almost the same product’ guises are very common in Taiwan.
(takes another bite out of Oreholes [Oreos], swigs another Caca Cola)
Well, I’m not sure if I’m ready for chicken that is “digit-sucking good”, as is sold in a shop near my house…
I am familiar with the Subway agreement because I have read it … but I am posting here as an attorney who spends a great deal of time working to get taiwanese licensees to pay royalties to their licensors. The franchise agreement is simply a license agreement… thus, I would not have had to have read the Subway agreement to understand the concept behind it.
The thing that you have to remember about this is that the franchisee who decides to separate from the franchisor/licensor, because he subsequently thinks the business is not so complicated, is cheating. He didn’t know how to run the business before he was trained by the franchisor and before he had access to the franchisor’s trade secrets. How many times have you tried to do something new and found it very difficult… and you could not have done it without someone’s help? Then, after you understand how to do it, it seems easy, right? But, you couldn’t do it without the assistance and know-how provided by someone else.
The guy who decides to separate from the franchisor/licensor is making esentially the same decision and rationalization. It matters not to him that the franchisor/licensor has spent years of time and effort and expense to develop a product and process… all he thinks is that it isn’t fair that he should pay royalties for something that now seems so simple and easy to do. He doesn’t even realize the value of not having to make the same mistakes over again that the franchisor has already made.
Moreover, even if the franchisee separates from his franchisor/licensor… and is offering a “different” product, he still has the store location. You know the saying… in real estate… “location, location, location”. The franchisor/licensor has assisted in obtaining the store location and has planned for that location in relation to all of the other franchised store locations… and now the franchisee, who thinks it unfair for him to have to comply with the terms of the agreement that he previously signed, is not only not paying royalties, but he is depriving the franchisor of the store location.
Finally, even in contractual situations that do not involve franchisees/licensees, but rather just employees, it is accepted that reasonable restrictions can be placed on the subsequent employment of an employee who leaves a company after learning the company’s trade secrets. It should be just as well accepted to place restrictions on a franchisee/licensee, who after agreeing to certain terms in exchange for access to a franchisor’s trade secrets decides to go off on his own.
My experience with Taiwanese publishers has been that they think it fair to place this restriction in my contract even when I was hired to train their staff to develop English material. In other words, they want to restrict me from profitting from company secrets that are actually mine. 