Subway in Hyderabad

When I first moved to India, in September, my dad said that he wanted to try out "that new Subway place". I told him I loved their sandwiches and that we should go there sometime. Except, it never worked out for a long time. Something kept coming up.

A few weeks ago, I did manage to take both my parents there. They were, understandably a little anxious about entering a new restaurant but I explained to them how subway works and how you order, the various choices you have etc. Most of this flew over their heads since it was their first time there. So I picked three different sandwiches for the three of us so that if we didn't like our sandwich we could eat one of the other two.

Now, as you read the rest, remember we're in Hyderabad, a Telugu-speaking city.

The manager greets us politely in English "Hello sir, welcome to Subway." I conversed with the manager in English from them on. Midway through the process of making our sandwich, my mom had a doubt about some ingredient and she asked me that question in Telugu. I, in turn, turned to the guy behind the counter and asked the same question in English. He, then, turns to the kitchen and shouts out the same question in Telugu! He gets his response, in Telugu obviously, and turns to me and gives me the answer in English.

Wow, I thought! Why all this song and dance? If he's a Telugu speaker, why can't we just give our order in Telugu instead of maintaining all this facade of being "posh" just because we're in a Subway? Does Subway instruct all its workers to talk in English only in order to justify the price tag? I mention the price tag because later that day my dad asked me why we just spent about Rs. 500 on a meal when we could have had the same meal in a generic restaurant for about Rs. 150, and I didn't have a better answer than "brand value". On another side note, in Chennai, the Subway restaurants have signboards in Tamil, that made me realize that no one has as much regional pride as the Tamilians do!

Coming back to our lunch. We ordered cokes along with our meals. As we sat down to have our meals, I noticed that our cups were only about 80% full. Being as we were in India where they don't allow the customers fill their own drinks or get refills (with good reason I might add!) I was peeved that they didn't have the decency to fill our cups to the brim. So I called the guy and pointed this out. "OK sir, I will fill them." He goes behind the counter and comes back with our drinks. "Here you are sir." I took off the lid and the cup had exactly the same amount of drink as before!!! I was so furious, I burst out laughing. I pointed this out to the guy and he mumbled something like "What can I do sir?"

Subway, this won't do. You've lost my respect.