Jersey Mike’s Gets That Bread From Its Ipo

Jersey Mike’s debuted on the New York Stock Exchange yesterday, the culmination of a relatively quick turnaround from its sale to private equity firm Blackstone last year.

The purveyors of the Big Kahuna Cheese Steak priced its IPO at $23 per share to raise ~$1 billion, making it the largest IPO in the restaurant sector since Krispy Kreme raised $500 million with its 2021 IPO. The newly dubbed JMKE opened lower, at $21, and closed the day down ~6% from its IPO price.

Fast food: PE companies tend to hold for years, but Blackstone fast-tracked the sandwich chain for public trading in 18 months. Blackstone moved so quickly because of Jersey Mike’s rapid growth in recent years and the public’s current voracious appetite for IPOs:

• Since 2019, Jersey Mike’s has tripled sales while smoking rival Subway. Per the Wall Street Journal, the average Jersey Mike’s location made $1.36 million in sales last year while Subway averaged $510,000 (although Subway has many more locations).
• This year is shaping up to be a record one for IPOs—there has been $146.1 billion of common stock offered in the first six months of 2026 (more than half from SpaceX), which is already more than the combined totals between 2022 and 2025.

Up next: Inspire Brands, the owner of chains that include Arby’s, Buffalo Wild Wings, and Dunkin’, could be the next restaurant operator to go public. It filed confidentially for an IPO in May with the intent to raise $2 billion, per Bloomberg.—DL

Become smarter in just 5 minutes. Subscribe to Morning Brew today.