courier-journal.com
Sub shops available for cool operators

This is cute. Forget about Subway, here's the place to get your grinders. There's a budding franchise out there called Cheba Hut - Toasted Subs, and they do mean toasted. Although they don't sell anything that actually contains the plant, except the hemp brownies that actually are topped with non-psychoactive hemp seed, the sandwiches and the shop all have a cannabis theme.

Two-foot-long papier-mâché joints rest above one of the restaurant's doors and TV set. The menu offers Thai Stick, White Widow and Northern Lights — sandwiches and salads, not strands of marijuana. Next to the cash register sits a 4-inch-high figurine of a man smoking a joint and a basket filled with "hemp brownies" and Rice Krispies bars.

Josh Lee, 23 years old and his mom Kim opened up the first franchised operation in Louisville, Kentucky of the business started by Scott Jennings in Arizona. Word has it the sandwiches are fabulous but will it fly in the south?

Even Josh wonders sometimes whether a marijuana-themed sandwich shop in what he calls "the outskirts of the Bible Belt" will work. "We try not to have it (the marijuana theme) overwhelming, so the average person who doesn't believe what we believe can come in and eat," he said.

Still, some customers, such as 20-year-old Mathieu Milton, say they come in because of, not despite, the theme. But like Clayton Sasse, 21, they plan to become regulars. Jennings, at least, has no doubt that Cheba Hut will work in Louisville.

"It's a hip, little city down there."

Jennings is not looking to get too big but is willing to entertain the idea of more franchises, "If it is a cool fit."