The Best Chain Restaurant Meatball Sub We Tried Left Us Fighting Over The Last Bite

Certain sandwiches are probably harder to scale successfully for chain restaurants than others. Almost any place should be able to slap together, say, cold cuts, cheese, and a few veggies. The best ones will also do so with quality ingredients. But something like a meatball sub, which requires more precise temperature regulation, textural nuance, and a degree of actual cooking at some point in its assembly, seems much more challenging to perfect. But Chowhound found one that made us vie for the last bite in our ranking of seven chain restaurant meatball subs. PrimoHoagies lived up to its name, coming in at No. 1 in a carnivorously cheesy and saucy battle against its peers.

You might see a couple of meatball varieties on PrimoHoagies' menu, including limited-time options like the Bada Boom Meatball, which adds long hot peppers. We chose the Old World Meatball sandwich for our evaluation. Its spheres marry the trio of veal, beef, and pork you might expect from excellent meatballs (the same meat blend favored by Ina Garten, who also adds warm water as her secret ingredient). They're coated in a nicely balanced marinara, cloaked with properly melty, sharp provolone, further speckled with grated Romano, sprinkled with Italian seasoning, and ultimately nestled onto a pillowy, seeded roll (non-seeded is also available for the sesame-averse). It's also a pretty hefty hoagie that you might be inclined to share, depending on your appetite, but still good enough that you, too, might want to snap up the last taste.

As with our assessment of chain restaurant cheesesteaks, in which Primo came in at a respectable No. 2, we always aim to create fair, equal conditions in our rankings. In this case, leveling the playing field meant ordering every meatball sub toasted and trying each one as soon as possible. We eschewed superfluous toppings and stuck to the meat, sauce, and cheese. Those elements needed to complement each other, rather than compete. And they needed to taste good in doing so. A too-sweet sauce in ideal proportions, for example, wouldn't make the cut. PrimoHoagies' meatball sub met each of our requirements to roll into the premier, er, primo spot.

There must also always be a last place in any numbered foodstuff appraisal. This time, Firehouse Subs threw cold water on its contribution with an underwhelming entry. Its Firehouse Meatball was huge, but packed with unpleasant flavors and textures. The meatballs were chewy, with what felt like some really substandard protein in the mix, the bread was likewise tough, and even the cheese was so rigid that the darn thing was hard to bite into. Firehouse's supposedly "zesty" marinara was also both too sugary and too acidic, with a weirdly thick consistency that seemed like it could have been piped out of a tube. PrimoHoagies' version just measured up a lot better and kept us wanting more, rather than leaving too much of a bad thing.