TikTok and a job at Subway are a gold mine for Milad Mirghahari

The New Yorker’s Jacob Sweet has a great article on the rise of twenty-year-old New Jersey Institute of Technology student and sandwich artist, Milad Mirghahari who became a TikTok Fast-Food star.

Before Milad Mirghahari began posting videos on TikTok, he didn’t know his job at Subway could be deeply captivating to millions of people. His parents, both immigrants from Iran, bought their first Subway franchise more than twenty years ago, and later opened a second store in Cedar Grove, New Jersey, near their home. After school, Mirghahari would eat a sandwich while his older brothers worked. At sixteen, he followed their lead and took an official part-time position.

@miladmirg

It was outside of Essen, not in Essen, whoops

♬ original sound – Milad

One day, someone placed an order in the comments: “Lemme get an Italian BMT with lettuce, tomato, onions, oil, vinegar, salt, pepper, oregano, and chipotle sauce.” Mirghahari thought the request was hilarious, so he filmed a point-of-view video of himself making the sandwich, layering spicy pepperoni, Genoa salami, and Black Forest ham on a six-inch sub. The comments section could hardly believe the exceptional nature of what had just occurred; requests for sandwiches flooded in. Some ordered staples (Spicy Italian, chicken teriyaki, turkey). Others thought of the least appetizing combinations possible (just lettuce plus every sauce, or several Subway cookies on a sub) and encouraged him to eat them. Mirghahari developed a video formula: identify the sandwich, make it, eat it, review it. “And that worked for a long time,” he told me.

Milad Mirghahari (born: September 30, 1999, better known online as Milad Mirg (formerly known as Milard), is an American YouTube and TikTok personality best known for his short commentary videos relating to his work at Subway. Of Persian background, his family immigrated to the United States following the Iranian Revolution, and his parents opened a Subway location at an unknown later point. In 2021, he graduated from the New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark, New Jersey.