Copyright Chicago Tribune
Back in the mid-1970s, long before Subway and Jimmy John’s and Jersey Mike’s landed on the shores of Lake Michigan, there was Mr. Submarine, a small Chicago-area chain with modest ambitions, an array of sub sandwiches and some really cheesy commercials. While the sub wars have seen national and local shops come and go over the years, torpedoed by changing tastes, business missteps and new competition, Mr. Submarine is still around, a quirky throwback celebrating its 50th anniversary as a Chicago institution. The secret sauce is not a sub topping, said Dan Tzoumas, 44, who runs the family owned Mr. Submarine, which was started by his father. “I think the main thing is the family glue,” Tzoumas said. “It’s always been a focus for everyone in the family.” It’s also good subs and a kitschy image honed by a half-century of memorably bad low-budget TV commercials. Launched in 1975 by Greek immigrant Gus Tzoumas at a kiosk inside the short-lived Old Chicago indoor amusement park in Bolingbrook, Mr. Submarine soon expanded beyond the southwest suburbs, reaching its peak at 31 locations in the 1990s. To bolster its growth, Mr. Submarine took to the airwaves with a catchy jingle, simple graphics and TV commercials that made Victory Auto Wreckers and its “that old car is worth money” spot look polished by comparison. In honor of that heritage, Mr. Submarine has created 50 new commercials for its 50th anniversary, paying tongue-in-cheek homage to its own and other Chicago advertisers’ shlocky campaigns of yore. The new campaign includes mashups with bygone retailers, cameos from an eclectic roster of well-known Chicagoans as well as reboots of vintage Mr. Submarine spots, replete with an updated version of its 1980s jingle. That harder-than-it-sounds task fell upon Gordy Sang and Brian Siedband, co-founders of Chicago-based Quality Meats Creative, a five-year-old shop that was named Ad Age Small Agency of the year in 2024. “We just wanted as many authentically well-known, deep-cut Chicago characters and businesses to be a part of this that are at the same level of iconography of Chicago lore and Chicagoness as Mr. Submarine,” Sang said. Most of the 50 new Mr. Submarine spots were filmed in a marathon two-day session at the company-owned Downers Grove store. The ad agency enlisted the help of Chicago musician John Merikoski to update the original Mr. Submarine jingle, with vocals by Ricky Liontones. The commercials were directed by Chicago native and Second City alum Brad Morris. Highlights include a Mr. Submarine re-creation of the low-budget, so-bad-it’s-good 1993 Eagle Insurance ad featuring Eagle Man landing on the roof of a car driven by two women, where he inexplicably lays an egg and delivers the line, “I’ve got something for you.” A chick then hatches with low insurance rates in its beak. To add authenticity, the agency obtained the original Eagle Man costume and giant egg from United Auto Insurance, which now owns the brand. In the new spot, the egg cracks open to reveal two sub sandwiches. The new campaign also remakes other classic Chicago TV commercials/jingles including Aronson Furniture, “home of the credit connection” and the Bedding Experts, “where dreams come true.” More recent Chicago TV personalities also make cameos, including personal injury attorney Howard Ankin, former White Sox player and manager Ozzie Guillen, former TV sportscaster Mark Giangreco and former Bears wide receiver Tom Waddle, who fumbles a passed sub in his new commercial. For many Chicagoans, the most memorably bad Mr. Submarine spot may have been the oft-played 1989 commercial featuring Chicago Bulls star Scottie Pippen suggestively tackling a large sub in a manger à trois with two Luvabulls cheerleaders. “Ladies, this is one 6-footer I can’t handle one-on-one,” Pippen says. “Let’s have a party.” While they didn’t get Scottie Pippen to reprise his role, the agency came up with Pottie Skippens, a fictional and decidedly unathletic character who delivers the same lines to two somewhat more mature women than the cheerleaders in the original commercial. “It’s just a semi-silly re-creation of the original,” Sang said. The 50 spots of the new campaign will live on social media channels and other digital platforms. Mr. Submarine is also planning to air the commercials on local TV during live sports broadcasts. That should help reach the primary target demo of middle-aged male customers. In addition, Mr. Submarine will show up on billboards in and around Chicago to promote its 50th anniversary. The submarine chain now has 20 stores, including five in Chicago and 15 across the south and west suburbs. The family owns seven locations and the rest are franchised. It remains a family affair with patriarch Gus Tzoumas keeping his hand in the business in semi-retirement at age 79. “You couldn’t pry him away from the business,” his son said. Meanwhile, the chain features many of the same sandwiches it did 50 years ago, with the addition of fries and a few other items to the menu over the years. Mr. Submarine is such a throwback it still serves the hard-to-find RC (Royal Crown) Cola, something it spoofs in one of the 50 new anniversary spots. Top sellers include a corned beef sub, a turkey sub and Mr. Sub, its signature Italian sub. All come with lettuce, tomatoes, onions and sub sauce. Take that, Mike’s Way. “It’s just getting the basics right when it comes to making a good sandwich,” Dan Tzoumas said. “We’re not fancy. We don’t pretend to be fancy, but we do the basics right, and we do it consistently right.” The original Mr. Submarine logo was designed by a local sign shop in 1978, and also remains unchanged. Many competitors have come and gone since then. The Original Italian U-Boat, a Chicago-area chain that also launched in the mid-’70s, grew to 30 locations in the city and suburbs, but sank in 1983 amid a bankruptcy. By the dawn of the new millennium, national chains like Subway were ubiquitous, Quizno’s, which would later go bankrupt, was ascendent, while Jimmy John’s and Jersey Mike’s were just getting started in the Chicago area. The Chicago area, of course, has its own favorites such as Bari, Fontano’s, J.P. Graziano’s and other homegrown purveyors of authentic Italian subs. Another contemporary with bigger aspirations was Potbelly, which grew from a single store on Lincoln Avenue in 1977 to a nationwide chain with more than 340 company-owned and 105 franchised restaurants. In September, RaceTrac, a Southern convenience store brand, bought Potbelly for $566 million and took the Chicago-based sandwich chain private. The secret to longevity for Mr. Submarine has always been an unapologetic lack of grand ambition. The chain not only didn’t seek to expand into other states, it never even ventured into the high-rent suburbs north of the Chicago city limits. “We’ve always kind of just been chugging along,” Dan Tzoumas said. “Part of that is never overextending ourselves and trying to get too big and just focusing on what we have.” While the new ad campaign may have a nostalgic appeal to Chicagoans of a certain age, Mr. Submarine is hoping that the offbeat commercials will attract a younger audience perhaps weaned on Jersey Mike’s and Jimmy John’s. To help lure customers new and old, Mr. Submarine is offering its classic Italian sub for 99 cents on Monday with a free anniversary coupon available through Saturday at any of its 20 Chicago-area locations. rchannick@chicagotribune.com
