Thursday, November 03, 2011

Bowie Restaurant Project: (26) Subway (Bowie Plaza) & (27) Subway (Wal-Mart) & (28) Subway (Bowie Town Center)

For an explanation of the Bowie Restaurant Project, look here.

For a list of all the Bowie Restaurant Project reviews, look here.

I'm taking Martin's suggestion of lumping several venues together when they are part of the same chain. But I can't bear to work my way through all of the Subways without giving myself the satisfaction of checking some reviews off my list.

I was going to tie together the Wal-Mart Subway and the Food Court Subway into one "Subways inside Other Buildings That Are Not Gas Stations" post, but then I discovered I had never gotten around to reviewing the one in Bowie Plaza. So, here are three reviews in one post.
Subway (Bowie Plaza)


Subway, 6928 Laurel-Bowie Road

Most Recent Foursquare Check-in: 10/18/2011
Total Foursquare Check-ins: 3
Pre-Foursquare Visits: No
Rating: 1 1/2 out of 5 stars

It's a Subway. Parking is easy, it's busier than other Subways I've seen (except the one in Wal-Mart), and the inside seems roomier than other restaurants in the chain. But other than that it's standard-issue. If you're going to go to a Subway in Bowie, it might as well be this one. Since it's the closest one to my house (by a minute) and it has decent parking, I'll probably go there a fair amount.


Subway, 3300 Crain Highway

Most Recent Foursquare Check-in: 10/31/2011
Total Foursquare Check-ins: 1
Subway (Wal-Mart)
Pre-Foursquare Visits: No
Rating: 1 out of 5 stars

It's a Subway. Inside of a Wal-Mart. As a Subway, it's fairly standard-issue. But it's inside a Wal-Mart. That means, if you're there to grab a sandwich, you have to deal with the hellscape that is the Bowie Wal-Mart parking lot. I mean, I'm glad that, unlike the Bowie Target, they're actually using most of their asphalt, but it seems to me that they didn't need to funnel all of the cars entering and exiting the parking lot past the pedestrian zone in front of the store entrance.

Then, once you've finally parked and walked into the store (dodging all of the cars trying to park), you walk a little bit through Wal-Mart to find that the store entrance is half-blocked by people in the Wal-Mart customer service line. The restaurant is busy, and it is hard to understand the accents of the Subway employees.

I am docking this place half a star for being inside Wal-Mart. If you're not at Wal-Mart, you're better off going to one of Bowie's other 6 Subways (well, I've only been to the 4 that aren't in gas stations, so let's restrict ourselves to those). If you are in Wal-Mart, go to one of the other ones, because then you will have the added bonus of having left Wal-Mart. Heck, you could even walk over to the New China restaurant in the same shopping center, if you really don't feel like getting into your car.

I'm not going to drop below one star, however, because it was still a tasty sandwich.


Subway, 3868 Town Center Blvd.
Subway (Bowie Town Center)
Now Closed!
Most Recent Foursquare Check-in: 11/02/2011
Total Foursquare Check-ins: 1
Pre-Foursquare Visits: Yes
Rating: 1 1/2 out of 5 stars

It's a Subway. In a food court. I know I was there pre-Foursquare because I remember arguing with the cashier who wanted to see my driver's license in order for me to use a credit card. (It's a violation of their credit card merchant agreement, but I've stopped arguing the point and found other hobbies.)

Parking is a lot more convenient than a lot of other restaurants in the mall, because much of the available parking tends to be behind the food court. Unlike Wal-Mart, I don't consider being at the mall to be inherently problematic, so I won't dock it half a star for that. In fact, being in the food court is convenient because you can go there with other people who get to choose a different food court eatery (and you can decide for yourself at the last minute to have bourbon chicken instead). The drink machine is behind the counter, which is a bummer if you'd prefer to serve yourself.

It's somewhat different than the other Bowie Subways, but not enough to escape the standard 1 1/2 star rating. If you want to go to Subway, and it's the closest one, there's no reason to avoid it.

Bowie Restaurant News
In a previous post, I mentioned the Ravza restaurant, which I noticed when driving by Collington Plaza, and I wondered why it wasn't on the city's list. Well, it's not there any more -- I don't know why the Collington Plaza management still had it on the sign along Crain Highway (for all I know, they still do.)


The Muffin Man Caribbean Cafe is supposed to be opening in 2010 according to the city's guide. The last I'd heard it was going to open in November (2011). Now we're back to January (2012).


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