Jersey Mike’s is an American chain of restaurants that sell submarine sandwiches. The chain is headquartered in the town of Manasquan, New Jersey. As of 2025, there are 3,500 Jersey Mikes locations, operating in all 50 US states.
History
In 1956, Michael and Marie Ingravallo, an Italian-American couple, founded Mike’s Giant Submarines, a local sub sandwich shop in Point Pleasant, New Jersey. The sub shop did not have competition as there were no national sandwich restaurant chains yet.
In 1971, 14-year-old Peter Cancro was hired to work at the restaurant for his parttime job. In 1975, when Mike’s Submarines went up for sale, Cancro, then a senior in high school, bought the restaurant from the Ingravallo family. With help from a high school football coach, they pulled together $125,000.
In 1986, Cancro began to franchise his restaurant. These franchises adopted the name Jersey Mike’s in order to keep the New Jersey-aesthetic.
By 2013, Jersey Mike’s had 750 locations, making it the fastest growing restaurant in the United States at that time. the restaurant opened its 1,000th franchise in 2015. That same year, Jersey Mikes began to expand towards the Pacific Seaboard, particularly in the Los Angeles Metropolitan Area.
The original Jersey Mike’s has since been converted into the training center for franchisees of Jersey Mike’s locations.
In 2022, Jersey Mikes began to make commercials featuring actor Danny DeVito, himself a native of New Jersey. These commercials feature DeVito doing goofy shenanigans, all relating to the restaurant.
In 2024, after 49 years of owning the restaurant, Peter Cancro sold Jersey Mike’s to Blackstone Inc., a private equity firm based in New York. Cancro still owns a controlling stake in the company.