Jersey Mike’s IPO raises $1 billion
Jersey Mike’s Subs Inc. has made an impressive public debut with one of the largest-ever initial fundraises for a restaurant IPO.
The New Jersey-based sub-sandwich chain and some of its shareholders raised about $1 billion through its initial public offering, with 43.5 million shares sold at $23 each. The IPO, which gives the company a valuation of $7.3 billion, attracted so much investor interest that it was more than 10-times oversubscribed, Bloomberg News reported.
Jersey Mike’s began trading on the New York Stock Exchange on July 30 under the ticker symbol JMKE. Its IPO comes less than two years after the company was acquired by private-equity firm Blackstone in January 2025.
Jersey Mike's has more than 3,300 locations across the United States and Canada. (Nearly all Jersey Mike's restaurants are franchised.) In January, it entered into a franchise agreement with founder and former CEO Peter Cancro to open 400 locations in the United Kingdom and Ireland.
The company has said it sees room for 7,500 locations domestically, and another 7,500 globally.
“We believe we remain under-penetrated in all markets, providing substantial runway for growth,” the company stated in a filing. "We have a strong domestic development pipeline of over 1,600 stores across new and existing markets. Over 90% of the pipeline is being undertaken by existing franchise owners — a powerful signal of franchisee confidence in the model."
The chain is led by restaurant industry veteran Charles Morrison who took the reins from Cancro in April 2025. Morrison is the former chairman and CEO of Wingstop (2012 to 2022), where he grew the business from fewer than 500 stores to over 2,000 locations.
Jersey Mike's was founded in 1956 as Mike's Subs with one location in Point Pleasant, N.J. The company has been recognized as one of the fastest-growing fast-casual restaurant chains in America, ranking #1 on Entrepreneur's 2026 Franchise 500 and #6 on Yelp's 2025 List of Fastest Growing Brands.
