It’s 8 a.m. on a typical Monday and Gary Bush is cutting up 60 tomatoes, 40 heads of lettuce and unwrapping more than five pounds of turkey. He has 120 minutes to complete the task, because at 10:30, his small sub shop near the FAU Boca campus opens its doors. But it’s not the doors that matter here – it’s the walls. They’re covered with posters of the FAU wrestling team, the dance team, the cheerleaders, the baseball team, and (of course) the football team.
Bush is a huge FAU fan but he didn’t go to FAU. He didn’t even go to college. He says, “You gotta support the home team.”
And the home team supports Bush. He estimates that FAU students make up 40 to 60 percent of his customers on any given day. “Ninety percent of students get this,” he says, pointing to the Mini Sub Combo. “A six inch sub, chips and a drink for $4 – you can’t beat that.”
But it’s not just the students who have adopted 620 Subs as the school’s official off-campus hangout. It’s also the official sub shop for the athletic department.
“We are a hometown team and they are a hometown shop,” says FAU Assistant Athletic Director Dexter Lamont, who’s been using 620 Subs to cater for all the athletic teams since he started his job in 2002. “They have really supported us in their shop and we want to support them. Their food is great and our players love their subs. You can’t argue with that logic.”
What Bush doesn’t sell or cater, he gives away. “College students don’t have a lot of money, so I like to help them out,” Bush says. “I’m a sucker for donations.” Just last month, he donated 300 subs for the FAU Greeks’ Rush Week.
This year Bush also started giving away free samples to athletic teams interested in his catering business. “You can use coupons and newspaper adds to advertise, but there is nothing like putting a sub in someone’s hands,” says Bush, who relies mainly on word-of-mouth advertising. “I don’t try to push it with people; I let the subs do the selling.”
620 Subs has been around for five years. Before that Bush says, “I was trying to find out what I wanted to do with my life.” He knew it would be in the restaurant business, because, “It’s kind of in my blood. I started out as a dishwasher when I was a kid.”
But why a sub shop? “It’s so hard to get a good sub made the old fashion way,” he says. “I wanted to take a stab at it.”
He spent more than six months shopping for a location. “FAU was the final seller,” says Bush. “The FAU football team was just starting up, and I knew right here was the place to be.”
Still, Bush was entering a cutthroat business, with national chains like Subway and Quiznos to compete against. He’s not concerned, though. “You get a lot of food for your money – there just isn’t a comparison with the chain shops.” And his subs are made to order. “We come in early before the shop opens to slice our ingredients. We don’t use any pre-sliced meats.”
Bush is successful enough that he has six employees – and he still has to work 70 hours a week. “Because we spend so much time here, we really get to know the people who come in here. They become more like friends than customers.”
He says he always tries to keep the students informed about what is going on sportswise at FAU. “Students get so busy they miss some of the fun stuff. Sometimes you need that other voice to say, ‘Hey go to the game.'”
620 Subs N’ Salads805 N Federal Hwy, Boca Raton561-620-SUBS (7827)Open Monday-Friday 10:30am-6pm, Saturday 11am-5pm, closed Sunday
