Subway joins Walmart Express Delivery, expanding restaurant orders in stores

Subway’s sandwich counters inside Walmart stores are being plugged into the retailer’s delivery machine, a move that could bring more sales to store-within-store units while adding another layer of pressure to crews already juggling in-person traffic and pickup rushes. Walmart said Subway is the first restaurant integrated into its Express Delivery service, with orders now available through the Walmart app and Walmart.com for delivery in 30 minutes or less.

The rollout began in select Walmart stores in Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas, and Walmart said it expects the service to reach about 1,400 locations by the end of summer. Subway has been Walmart’s largest in-store restaurant tenant since 2004, so the deal extends a long-running relationship rather than creating a new one. Walmart also said Subway pricing will match in-restaurant menus, with some participating stores offering exclusive menu items.

For restaurant workers, the bigger question is how the added volume gets absorbed. More ordering channels usually mean more pacing problems in the back of house, especially when sandwich assembly has to line up with delivery dispatch, grocery traffic and walk-up customers at the same time. Inside a Walmart, that can turn a relatively small counter into a mini fulfillment hub, where one late build can ripple into driver wait times, soggy bread and a backlog at the prep table.

That pressure lands at a delicate moment for Subway’s U.S. system. Reporting on the company’s 2026 franchise disclosure document showed a net loss of 729 locations in 2025, and Subway has closed 3,417 restaurants since the start of 2021. A new delivery channel inside a high-traffic host store could help some franchisees lift sales, but it also raises the stakes for the employees making every sandwich during peak grocery hours.

Walmart framed the move as part of a larger effort to put groceries, household essentials, fashion, prescriptions and restaurant meals into one shopping flow. The company says customers make around 21 meal decisions each week, a reminder that sandwich sales are increasingly being pushed into the same basket as milk, paper towels and detergent. For Subway crews, that means the customer may never enter the restaurant at all, but still expects the same speed and accuracy.

Fast Company reported that timing is the operational hinge: sandwiches assembled too early can get soggy, while a driver arriving too soon wastes time. Walmart said its last-mile network has been refined over years, but the labor burden still falls on the counter, where the work is becoming more logistics-heavy and less forgiving.