Capitalizing on Augie's Closing, Jreck Subs Hopes to Attract some of the Same Business

Augie’s, once the spot for cheap ($1, and towards its demise, $1.25) pizza on Syracuse University’s campus, closed last year, leaving drunk students wandering home from the bars on campus wondering where to eat (fear not, noble reader, their appetites were satiated, for Marshall street has a lot of other restaurants open late).

“Their one dollar slices were my fuel to get me back to Euclid from the bars,” Meghan Cressy Nelson, a senior policy studies major said. A year later, many students are left without what was once a staple of Syracuse University.

In tough economic times, small businesses have a hard time allocating funds and starting, or in Augie’s case, maintaining, successful businesses. Large corporations who seem to be able to weather these economic storms, seemingly unaffected by tough economic situations, capitalize on closings of small businesses owned locally. In its 2009 report to the president, the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) reported that average unincorporated self-employment fell from 10.4 million to 10.1 million over a year, and averaged around 9.6.million by November of 2008. Incorporated self-employment remained steady around 5.8 million, on average.

Jreck Subs, with its new location on Marshall Street sandwiched between Jimmy John’s Sandwiches and a new start-up, Sliders, is hoping to capitalize on the prime real-estate that once belonged to the beloved Augie’s, an oasis of sorts for the fiscally concerned drunk college student for its tenure on campus.

In its third week, Jreck has seen successes. They considered their opening 6:00 PM on September 21st, in time for the opening football game against Maine, a solid opening.

“We were a little late to catch the movement crowd, but we had a good after game response, and Sunday was much better than anticipated; our weekday traffic has been continuous,” Chief Operating Officer Gary Baker said.

Jreck is offering late night hours on weekends to attract the same crowd that Augie’s once considered its bread and butter. “The late night crowd is more than we thought,” Baker said. Tricia Swartz, Jreck’s Director of Finance, was well aware of the crowd that Augie’s attracted and hopes that the sub shop can act as a surrogate for the drunken masses.

“We are hoping to make Jreck Subs a staple here at SU,” she said.

With prices averaging between $3.99 and $4.99, the seemingly impossible affordability (read: beloved fiscal irresponsiblity) of Augie’s is gone. The location is the same, the convenience is there, but what’s missing is that junky food that you were usually too drunk to notice was sub-par. Instead, it’s replaced by slightly more expensive, quality food. There is something more clinical about the place that once housed dollar slices and free scowls, but, again, you’ll be too drunk to notice.