Double Dusted with Harley Morenstein

This week, Harley and Big Lynch autopsy the quietest deletion in sandwich history. For decades, Subway carved a trough into the top of the bread and cradled your sandwich inside it. Then, around 2000, the U-gouge quietly vanished, no announcement, no clean date, and over the next twenty-five years the standardization it hinted at took over everything. The boys trace it from a 17-year-old with a $1,000 loan from a nuclear physicist, to the 8% royalty machine that rewarded opening Subways next to other Subways, the Irish court ruling that the bread is legally not bread for tax purposes, the 2021 franchisee letter about stores seized over a smudged window, and the family selling to private equity for a reported value of up to $9.55 billion while the sale rebate franchisees asked for never materialized. Plus: Quebec's lost fluorescent-green Subway sauce, the great loafing confessional, a $22 Jersey Mike's sub, the stamp-card hustle of a lifetime, and whether you can still walk in and ask for the old cut. New episodes of Double Dusted Discussion, every Monday!Join the Discord, Harley's Trap House, and check out the Double Dusted Discussion channel.Tell us what you think at r/EpicMealTime, @EpicMealTime on Twitter, or [email protected] sure to subscribe and follow the podcast. New episodes every Monday! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week, Harley and Big Lynch are joined by Chef Atari for the tale of two dogs, a line taken from Taco Bell's own Supreme Court brief. In 1996, Michigan creators Tom Rinks and Joe Shields pitched Taco Bell a character called Psycho Chihuahua and spent nine months sending art, merch, and proposals at the company's request. Then Taco Bell's new ad agency pitched a chihuahua of its own. A Taco Bell staffer warned the company's lawyers the two dogs looked a little too similar, and they launched anyway. The boys break down the campaign that sold 13 million plush chihuahuas in a single quarter, the record sales slump that ended it in 2000, the Grand Rapids jury that awarded $30,174,031, the interest that pushed the judgment past $42 million, the confidential settlement, and Taco Bell suing its own ad agency to cover the bill and losing that too. Plus: the Godzilla crossover, RIP Wishbone, the great dog-actor salary debate, Wendy's grocery store burgers that reportedly disintegrate on the grill, and the Christopher Nolan Star Wars coffee rumor. Next week: the phone police. New episodes of Double Dusted Discussion, every Monday!Join the Discord, Harley's Trap House, and check out the Double Dusted Discussion channel.Tell us what you think at r/EpicMealTime, @EpicMealTime on Twitter, or [email protected] sure to subscribe and follow the podcast. New episodes every Monday! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week, Harley and Big Lynch autopsy Fiji Water: the square bottle that won the status-water war of the 2000s and then watched the culture move on. The boys trace it from Canadian millionaire David Gilmour drilling into a Fijian aquifer in 1996 and pricing the water above Evian on purpose, to the reported $50 million sale to the Resnicks, the Cleveland ad war that ended with arsenic found in Fiji's own bottle, the 2010 tax standoff where the company shut its plant and folded in 48 hours, and the Fiji Water Girl photobomb that turned into a lawsuit. Now the price gap has compressed, the purity brand has a recall on its record, and Saratoga holds the Golden Globes stage Fiji made famous. Plus: Harley's Liquid Death survival system at Burning Man, the great movie-theater popcorn bathroom debate, and the truth about Double Stuffed Oreos. New episodes of Double Dusted Discussion, every Monday!Join the Discord, Harley's Trap House, and check out the Double Dusted Discussion channel.Tell us what you think at r/EpicMealTime, @EpicMealTime on Twitter, or [email protected] sure to subscribe and follow the podcast. New episodes every Monday! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week, Harley and Big Lynch autopsy the strangest coup in restaurant history. In 2014, hedge fund Starboard Value published a 294-slide deck roasting Olive Garden: 700 million breadsticks a year at three per guest, breadsticks that tasted like hot dog buns, a $42 million signage change, and pasta water left unsalted to protect a warranty on the pots. Darden management answered with 24 slides. So shareholders fired all twelve directors in what Forbes called the first total overthrow of an S&P 500 boardroom. The boys connect it back to the Red Lobster fire sale that started the war, break down the deck's greatest hits, and tally the body count: one CEO, twelve directors, one corporate jet. Plus: the 100-pound chocolate bar gets a Lynch layer, and a Chef Atari callback. New episodes of Double Dusted Discussion, every Monday!Join the Discord, Harley's Trap House, and check out the Double Dusted Discussion channel.Tell us what you think at r/EpicMealTime, @EpicMealTime on Twitter, or [email protected] sure to subscribe and follow the podcast. New episodes every Monday! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week, Harley and Big Lynch are joined by Chef Atari to autopsy the most litigated crust in history. In 1987, Brooklyn cheesemaker Anthony "The Big Cheese" Mongiello patented stuffing the crust of a pizza with cheese and mailed it to Pizza Hut, who told him it was not a new concept. Seven years later, Pizza Hut launched Stuffed Crust with $45 million in ads and a Donald Trump commercial, and Mongiello sued for a billion dollars. The boys break down the competing origin stories, the patent registered as "Stuffin' the Crust" because the real name was too descriptive, the case that came down to how employees folded dough around string cheese, and the movie Mongiello made about it all. Plus: DiGiorno's frozen stuffed crust rings, and the YouTube golf drama tangent. New episodes of Double Dusted Discussion, every Monday!Join the Discord, Harley's Trap House, and check out the Double Dusted Discussion channel.Tell us what you think at r/EpicMealTime, @EpicMealTime on Twitter, or [email protected] sure to subscribe and follow the podcast. New episodes every Monday! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices