CHICAGO — It's June! Hopefully tonight we can turn the heat off for good. Here's what we're reading.
Subway's Profits Getting Thin: Senior editor Andrew Herrmann, reading a Washington Post story about the problems facing the Subway sandwich chain, was struck by two fun facts: 1.) Fred DeLuca was 17 when he started it and he's now worth $2.6 billion; and 2.) the average Subway shop's annual revenue is $437,000 compared to the average McDonald's at $2.4 million. The Post says the chain, with about 44,000 shops around the world, saw sales decline 3 percent last year as customers seek fresher alternatives. Apparently, the meat in the wax paper and the microwave ovens have been turning people off.
In other fast food news, the AP says KFC is suing three Chinese companies for spreading a false rumor on social media that its chickens have been engineered to have six wings and eight legs.
Japan offers toppings such as duck pastrami and sardines with basil sauce. [Subway]
Vince Vaughn Wants Guns In Schools: Tired of hearing about school shootings? Actor and former Chicagoan Vince Vaughn apparently thinks more guns would help stop the heinous acts. Politico shares part of an interview the actor did with British GQ, where he suggested that schools would be safer if guns were allowed:
“In all of our schools it is illegal to have guns on campus, so again and again these guys go and shoot up these f——ing schools because they know there are no guns there,” he told the magazine.
He's clearly not been keeping up with the news in Chicago, where more than 300 people were shot, 37 fatally, in May.
Up, up and away: Former Sun-Times Springfield Bureau chief Dave McKinney, writing in the New York Times, looks at the new Near West Side helicopter business and finds that it's being run by Mike Conklin, a former Marine 1 chopper pilot under President Bill Clinton. Writes McKinney: "One thing Mr. Conklin said is missing from Vertiport Chicago by design is a feature that pilots will appreciate: There are no directives to remain 100 feet above landscaping obstacles on landings and takeoffs, as there were on the White House South Lawn with its fountain." Chopper flights here can run $3,600 but there might be a market for high-power execs landing at smaller suburban airports, choppering to the pad in the Medical District, then limo-ing Downtown a few miles away.
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