Read time: 6 min.

I don’t find myself at Subway very often these days. After working there through high school and college, I’m still a little burnt out on that unmistakable aroma- a mix I’ve come to conclude combined fresh bread, banana peppers, and onions. A couple of weeks ago, though, I caved and grabbed a Chicken Bacon Ranch with Chipotle Southwest sauce for lunch with a friend. It took a single bite -and that smell- to get my mind to wander! I suddenly remembered one of the Subway shops I used to frequent back in high school, and recalled it had quietly closed its doors.

Subway was my first real job. I could have worked anywhere that took sixteen-year-olds, but my decision came down to teenage priorities: I wanted to buy stuff for my new girlfriend, and a sandwich shop felt like the easiest way to get a paycheck. The closest Subway was right down the road from my house, there was no deep fryer to contend with, and I already liked their food. I filled out an application. Just like that, I became a sandwich artist. 

I started off working at the nice Subway in Yorktown. The company that signed my paychecks wasn’t Doctor’s Associates or Subway IP, Inc., though; it was Estep & Company, a Columbus-based franchise that owned purt near all the Subways in town. One was in Southway Centre, a past-its-prime shopping center on the southern edge of Muncie. 

Southway Centre began life as Southway Plaza in 1958, right where two state highways crossed on the way to downtown. The L-shaped complex stretched nearly a thousand feet, its storefronts framed by long runs of show windows that gave the place a modern appeal. With 135,000 square feet of space, the center opened with twenty-three tenants, many of which were names that once defined everyday shopping: Woolworth’s, W.T. Grant, Kroger, Marsh, Beall’s clothing, and Knott’s Leather and Luggage¹. Industrial Trust and Savings bank anchored the southern edge of the plaza² with its brand-new drive-thru window.

By the time I emerged on the scene, Southway Centre was barely hanging on after it fell into disrepair and was repeatedly “reborn” under new owners³. Marsh still anchored the plaza’s northeast corner under its budget brand LoBill Foods, and I stopped in a couple of times when I found myself in that part of town. A Dollar General, an off-brand wireless store, a branch of the Muncie YMCA, a doctor’s office, and maybe a local mattress wholesaler rounded out the offerings⁴. Subway was there, too, at least since 2001⁵, in the space once occupied by Industrial Trust. I ventured there the most. 

I never worked there, though, because I always pulled the night shift at my Subway in Yorktown. The day crew left me with plenty of bread most of the time, but every so often, we’d get hit with a surprise rush that wiped us out. With no time to thaw, proof, and bake more footlongs, I’d have to hightail it over to the Southway Subway to raid their racks. Once high school sports kicked into gear, those late-night bread runs became a regular part of my routine! Somehow, the day shift never quite figured out how to forecast enough footlongs. 

Most of my other trips to the Southway Subway came because of the Estep & Company Christmas party. The Southway Centre Subway was huge! It featured a giant backroom that was a leftover from the restaurant’s days as a bank. The owners always stopped by to present us with Christmas gifts, each of which helped us show up to work on time. One year, I unwrapped a set of jumper cables. The next, I got an alarm clock.

As corny as they were, I appreciated those gifts! My first car was a 1991 Honda Accord with 260,000 hard miles on it, and the jumper cables got forced into action all the time. What became of the alarm clock, on the other hand, is a bit of a mystery. Somewhere along the way, it disappeared.

So did the Subway at Southway Plaza. In 2011, Estep & Company opened a brand-new store a mile north on Madison Street. Since then, most of Southway’s remaining storefronts have gone vacant as well. YMCA Midwest Health Strategies and Open Door Health Services moved sometime before 2010⁶, and Marsh closed its doors three years later⁷. Dollar General, Jackson Hewitt, and a couple of other stragglers still remain at what was once Muncie’s premier southside shopping center, but the place is pretty bleak.

That’s not to say people haven’t tried to breathe new life into the moribund plaza. In 2022, a Seattle-based tech outfit called BrickRed Systems⁸ swooped in with plans to turn it into a satellite office as part of a larger redevelopment vision. The project promised retail space, medical offices, and even a grocery store⁹– much like what Southway Centre looked like back in 2009 when I spent the occasional hour there. Unfortunately, aside from a fresh coat of dark paint, little looks to have transpired over the last three years. 

I’ve been to the new Subway just north of Southway on Madison Street a few times. It’s a nice, modern place! Still, one whiff from the drive-through window took me right back to its predecessor down the road, to a time of late-night bread runs, company Christmas parties, and the feeling of freedom that came with my first paycheck ($82.40) and my beat-up Honda that was missing interior door handles.

Southway Centre may have been a shadow of what it once was even as early as I started going there, but for me, its southern tip remains wrapped up in memories of growing up, working hard, and stumbling into adulthood. Places fade, businesses close, and shopping centers crumble, but the stories they leave behind stick around. Sometimes, they’re triggered by nothing more than the smell of a sandwich.

Sources Cited
1 Southway Plaza Marks Grand Opening (1958, October 29). The Muncie Evening Press. p. 10. 
2 Branch Bank (1958, October 29). The Muncie Evening Press. p. 20. 
3 Roysdon, K. (2010, November 14). New life for SOUTHWAY. The Muncie Star Press. p. 21. 
4 (See footnote 3). 
5 Building Permits (2001, September 9). The Muncie Star Pres. p. 36.
6 (See footnote 3). 
7 Roysdon, K. & Gibson, R. (2014, June 1). Can development Jolt Muncie’s South Side? The Muncie Star Press. p. A1. 
8 Penticuff, D. (2022, March 3). Washington State IT firm remakes strip center. The Muncie Star Press. p. A1. 
9 Penticuff, D. (2022, March 9). Abatement for Markets on Madison in the works. The Muncie Star Press. p. A1.