9 Pub Sub Orders Floridians Argue About on Game Day

Florida hosts South Carolina in the Swamp on Saturday with a noon-hour kickoff, and the Dolphins host the Bengals at 1 p.m. Sunday.

That’s two days of feeding a living room.

Somebody volunteers to make the Publix run, and the fight over what to order starts before anyone gets near the deli counter.

These are the Pub Sub orders Floridians argue about on game day.

1. Chicken Tender Sub Rankings

Publix’s Chicken Tender Sub is the order half the room wants and the other half calls overrated.

Both sides can point at a published ranking.

A Miami New Times writer put the Chicken Tender Sub first and called it the best Pub Sub with no contest.

Chowhound tasted ten Publix subs in 2025 and slotted the same sandwich third, behind the plain turkey and the meatball.

Then Tasting Table ran a tasting in June 2026, found the tenders over-breaded and under-seasoned, and ranked the sub last after its taster couldn’t finish it.

Shoppers keep buying it.

It’s the sub likeliest to anchor a Publix run before kickoff, whatever the rankings say.

2. Sauce on the Tenders

In 2023, Publix settled part of this fight when it used data on the most-ordered tender combinations to build four signature versions of the Chicken Tender Sub.

Buffalo, bacon ranch, Parmesan with marinara, and sweet and spicy with sweet sriracha made the official lineup, per Fox 35 Orlando’s report at the time.

Nobody took that as final.

Chowhound’s tasters called a combo the pro move: Ranch on one side and honey mustard on the other.

The Miami New Times writer laid out three alternatives instead: Buffalo sauce, buttermilk ranch, or the fan-favorite Boar’s Head Chipotle Gourmaise.

When Publix built a Buccaneers-themed sub for the 2023 season, its corporate chefs chose tenders, bacon, cheddar, and spicy gold sauce.

That build ran for a limited time at select stores.

A shopper who orders straight off Publix’s four signature versions and a shopper who remembers the Bucs build are describing two different sandwiches.

3. Bread on the Sub

Three loaves come standard on Publix’s online sub builder: White, whole wheat, and Italian Five Grain.

The five-grain camp has strong feelings about the other two.

Then a fourth loaf showed up.

In February 2025, Publix rolled out a soft white roll, baked in-store and a little sweet, across all eight states, the Miami Herald reported.

Tasting Table’s separate ranking of Publix bakery breads put the plain white sub roll fifth of 16, praising its texture and mild flavor.

The Miami New Times ranking’s bread picks split by sandwich.

Italian Five Grain or whole wheat covers the second-ranked Italian Sub, and white or whole wheat covers the top-ranked Chicken Tender Sub.

On a two-game weekend, the loaf decides whether a sandwich survives sitting out through the game or turns soft by halftime.

Four loaves, four opinions.

4. Toasted, Pressed, or Cold

Publix’s sub-ordering page offers to toast a Chicken Tender Sub, and the published tastings can’t agree on whether toasting is worth it for anything else on the menu.

Tasting Table toasted only two subs in its 2026 ranking, the meatball and the roast beef, and left the rest cold.

Chowhound toasted its meatball sub, too, which puts the two rankings in agreement on that sandwich.

That’s where it stops.

The Miami New Times writer went the other way and recommended toasting on many of the picks, with the Cuban pressed and toasted for the crunch.

The Gators’ kickoff against South Carolina lands in the noon hour Saturday.

The Dolphins take the field against Cincinnati at 1 p.m. Sunday on Fox.

A toasted sub eaten at halftime of either game has been steaming in its wrapper since the opening kickoff, which is the cold-sub side’s whole case.

5. Salami on the Cuban

A Cuban Sub from Publix’s deli comes with sweet ham, roast pork, and a choice of cheese.

There’s no salami.

Tampa’s City Council voted in April 2012 to designate a Historic Tampa Cuban Sandwich.

The official recipe requires Genoa salami, according to WUSF, Tampa’s public radio station.

Tampa kept the salami.

Publix’s Genoa salami isn’t hard to find at the counter: It’s one of the meats in the Italian Sub.

It isn’t part of the Cuban Sub’s listed build, so a Tampa loyalist at a deli counter in Brandon has to ask for it when ordering.

Publix’s Dolphins-themed Pub Sub, introduced in 2023, was a spin on a Cuban sandwich with no salami, NBC Miami reported.

It carried tavern ham, pulled pork, Swiss, lemon garlic aioli, and crispy jalapeños.

A Cuban Sub with no salami is a Miami Cuban, whatever the jersey says.

6. Ultimate or Plain Turkey

The Ultimate Sub stacks tavern ham, oven-roasted turkey breast, and top round roast beef from Publix’s deli, and its case is simple: Three meats beat one.

The published tastings can’t agree.

Chowhound ranked the plain Turkey Sub first in 2025 and called it the unsung hero of the menu.

The Ultimate finished sixth in that tasting, dragged down by roast beef the tasters found bland.

Tasting Table flipped that a year later, putting the Ultimate second and the turkey fourth.

Publix keeps feeding the fight, too.

In late July 2026, the deli priced Italian, Ultimate, and Turkey half subs at $3.99 each, the Tampa Bay Times reported.

That half-sub size is exactly what a game-day spread calls for: A Turkey loyalist and an Ultimate loyalist splitting one order without either side backing down.

7. New Brisket Subs

Smoked brisket landed on Publix’s deli menu in April 2026, and the reviews turned into a public back-and-forth within two weeks.

The lineup came as three subs and a sandwich, per Supermarket News.

There’s a Spicy Brisket Sub with jalapeños and fried onions, a Brisket, Lettuce and Tomato Sub, and a Southern Style Brisket Sub with cheddar and pickles.

The sandwich is a half-pound of brisket on a brioche roll.

One sauce covers all four.

Two News 6 anchors in Orlando tasted the new subs on air.

One scored them four out of ten.

Publix responded by sending a fresh batch to the station for a second tasting.

Both anchors liked the retaste better.

That’s the whole brisket argument in miniature: The second batch won the anchors over, but not everyone who tried the first batch got a second sandwich.

8. Meatball Sub’s New Ranking

A 2026 ranking of Publix subs puts the Homestyle Beef Meatball Sub on top.

Tasting Table named it the best sub Publix makes in June 2026, crediting a rich slow-cooked tomato sauce and provolone that melted properly once the roll went through the toaster.

Chowhound ranked it second.

The Miami New Times writer put it seventh of seven.

If you ask us, the game-day objection is the sauce: A meatball sub that’s perfect at the counter at 11 a.m. is a different sandwich by the second quarter.

Eat it in the parking lot, and the debate never comes up.

9. Boar's Head Question

Publix offers Boar's Head meat as an upgrade on many Pub Subs, and the argument over whether it's worth the extra money changed shape in the summer of 2024.

That July, Boar's Head recalled 7 million pounds of deli meat from its Jarratt, Virginia plant during a listeria outbreak.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention closed its investigation in January 2025 at 61 people sickened across 19 states.

Sixty of them were hospitalized, and 10 died.

Publix pulled product from that plant in August 2024 and kept selling Boar's Head made elsewhere.

The Virginia plant stayed dark for close to 17 months and reopened in February 2026, the Associated Press reported.

The taste argument never left.