When Submarina founders Les Warfield and Ron Vickers moved to San Diego in 1976, one of the first things they did was try to find a sub-sandwich shop. The sunny days in San Diego were enough to lure the two U.S. Postal Service workers to request transfers from their Reno, Nevada, postal carrier routes. It wasn't long, however, before they missed one of their favorite work-day lunch stops. As their sandwich search continued in San Diego without success, they started talking about opening their own shop. How hard could it be?

As Warfield said, "We had no experience, no capital and by every rule of business we should have failed. We didn't know an avocado from prosciutto, but we were willing to learn."