Three friends started the sandwich chain Blimpie Subs, which is still operating in 2022. However, many of its locations are now closed, and numerous ownership changes have taken place.
Tony Conza disliked naming the sandwiches subs since it sounded like a greasy spoon, so he came up with the moniker Blimpie. Hoboken people were not familiar with the Philadelphia term “hoagies,” which Conza favoured.
He searched a dictionary until he found the word “blimp,” which to him almost sounded like a sandwich. By the start of 1992, there were 27 states with Blimpie locations.
When the chain reached 500 locations in that year, the company was renamed Blimpie International, Inc. In the spring of 1993, Blimpie started trading its shares on the NASDAQ exchange. The company started to market more actively than it had in the preceding three years, increasing its marketing expenditure to almost $2 million annually.
Blimpie Subs
Is The Blimpie Subs Still In Business In 2022?
Even if the Blimpie Subs are still operating today, they are far from their preeminent state. Due to low sales and frequent ownership changes, several of their stores in various locations are shuttered.
In the first half of the 1990s, Blimpie made a lot of money, but in the second half, the subs’ net worth started to decline. By the mid-1990s, the majority of the subfranchisor rights to the Blimpie Subs network had been sold, ending what had been a steady stream of income, and by the 2000s, Blimpie International was in financial trouble.
Investors lost interest in the company as Blimpie’s problems worsened, and the stock price dropped. Blimpie joined the growing group of restaurant businesses that have left the public market because it saw little benefit in doing so.
In October 2001, a private investment group under the direction of Jeffrey K. Endervelt reached an agreement to buy Blimpie International for $25.7 million.
What Exactly Happened To The Sandwich Brand Blimpie Subs?
The friends who started Blimpie Subs parted ways. In 1965, Bandassare quit Blimpie, but Conza and DeCarlo kept the company going and distributed Blimpie franchises throughout the northeast and the mid-Atlantic.
While DeCarlo had no plans to enter the South in 1976, Conza did. Conza had plans to grow his business in the early 1980s. He established the Manhattan restaurant Border Café in 1984, serving Mexican food and beverages.
Later, Tony opened up two more Border Cafés in New York in 1986, but he suffered a great financial loss. He later admitted that Border Café was a terrible mistake because he put in less time, effort, and money on Blimpie.
Subway, Blimpie’s rival at the time, expanded across the nation, endangering the company’s financial stability.
Blimpie Subs Owner Tony Conza Net Worth 2022: Is She Rich?
Owner of Blimpie Subs Tony Conza had a net worth of more than $50 million at the height of his success.
In 1964, he and two high school friends came up with the innovative idea of selling submarine sandwiches. When the three opened their first restaurant in Hoboken, New Jersey, with a $2,000 loan from a local businessman, it wasn’t a unique concept, but it was still new enough in the restaurant market to be a distinctive and well-liked concept.
With more than 2,100 franchised shops in 15 countries, Blimpie International now generates $350 million in yearly sales. Conza has had many highs and lows, failures and extraordinary accomplishments, but he has never lost his love for Blimpie.