Jimmy John's is Bringing Back the Sprouts (and Moving Some of Its Operations to Florida)

Know how everyone can be having a good time, hanging out, eating their beach club sandwiches, and all of a sudden, bam, E. coli shows up all Scumbag Steve-like and ruins the party? That's sort of what happened earlier this year when multiple food poisoning outbreaks caused national sandwich franchise...

By Tricia Woolfenden

October 4, 2012

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Know how everyone can be having a good time, hanging out, eating their beach club sandwiches, and all of a sudden, bam, E. coli shows up all Scumbag Steve-like and ruins the party? That's sort of what happened earlier this year when multiple food poisoning outbreaks caused national sandwich franchise Jimmy John's to be all, We're totally dropping sprouts from our menus, for, like, ever, man. And everyone was all like, But that's the best part, dude! Now it looks like the breakup wasn't for good after all.

The sprouts -- which no one really realized how much they loved until they were gone -- are slowly reemerging this month in Illinois stores. In an announcement via the company's main Facebook page, Jimmy himself said the national rollout will "be trickling in over the next 16 weeks."

"To my most incredible long term sprout loving customers. I am rolling out a new sprout. Costs more for me, it's tougher to manage, but we think we hit a homerun on this one. It is currently in my central Illinois units, and by next week the rest of the Illinois stores will have it," reads the message, which was posted Wednesday afternoon. By Wednesday evening, the status had drawn more than 3,000 "likes" and more than 120 "shares." The overwhelming sentiment of those comments can be summed up as "Yay!!! My (insert sandwich name here) hasn't been the same since!!! (Insert happy emoticon here.)"

"Jimmy" also makes mention of the "outpouring of feedback," likely from folks who aren't trying to care about the risk of food poisoning when they're just aiming to get their sandwich on.

In other Jimmy John's news, it has been reported on Biztimes.com and elsewhere that the company's founder, Jimmy John Liautaud, plans to move the company's licensing division from Illinois to Florida. The move is reportedly in response to a corporate tax increase that recently went into effect in Illinois. The relocation would bring the operations to an unspecified Florida city in early 2013. The sprouts, however, should arrive a bit sooner.

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