Fred DeLuca (born 1948 in New York City [1]) is the co-founder of the Subway franchise of sandwich restaurants. DeLuca is an alumnus of Central High School in Bridgeport, CT and the University of Bridgeport.
When DeLuca was seventeen years old, he borrowed $1,000 from family friend Peter Buck to start his first sandwich shop in 1965. He was trying to raise money to pay for college. He attended the University of Bridgeport; a private school in CT. He chose a mediocre location for his shop, but by noon on the first day of the opening, customers were pouring in. On the radio advertisement they had promoted the name as "Pete's Submarines", which sounded like Pizza Marine, so they changed the name to "Pete's Subway", eventually it was shortened to "Subway", as it is known today. As of October 2008, the company counts over 31,000 franchised locations in 91 countries and produces US $9.05 billion sales every year. In 2007, Forbes magazine named DeLuca number 242 of the 400 richest Americans with a net worth of $1.5 billion. [2]
DeLuca and Peter Buck also partnered to create Franchise Brands [3] in an effort to assist other entrepreneurs in replicating their success in the franchise industry.
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