It has been a busy two years for the co-owners of the local Fayetteville and Hope Mills Subway locations. From new leadership to a new look, their team has been working on a complete refresh of the brand known for freshly made, customizable meals. 

It started in July of 2024 when Co-owners Amer Dastgir, longtime Subway franchisee Robert Seefeldt and Anthony Quire came together. 
“I had a couple of stores in town that I sold to these guys, and they asked me if I wanted to come in with them,” shared Seefeldt. “They were just getting started in the Subway franchise at that time. I had been doing it for about 25 years. They asked me if they were starting to expand, and they asked me if I wanted to go in as partners with them. So I came back in after they bought my two stores from me.” 

The trio would later go on to acquire multiple Subways across Hope Mills and Fayetteville, including locations on Bragg Blvd, Raeford Road, Cliffdale Road and a location on the Pope Army Airfield base. They also have three locations in Goldsboro. 

Their biggest challenge was the Subway Hope Mills location at 3020 N Main St., a location that had been open for more than 30 years in the community. The three found themselves faced with a shop in desperate need of repair, better customer service and better management after taking over a restaurant with a negative reputation within the community. 

It started with a facelift. In 2024, it was announced that the Hope Mills location was selected as one of the first locations for a nationwide remodel campaign. While the shop wasn’t fit for the overall 2.0 renovation, the 1.0 design was just what they needed. 

“It had Tuscan decor, which is what it was called,” recalled Seefeldt. “It was not nearly as bright or as open as the new look. It was a lot of stuff hanging from the ceilings, which made it look cluttered. There were just dark colors, browns and the floor was dark brown. The new decor is much brighter and cleaner, much more streamlined than the old decor for sure.” 

The next step was tackling a negative reputation within the community. Along with implementing programs aimed at kids, such as their Read A Book program, the Hope Mills location is also dedicated to giving back to the community.
Some examples of their charitable acts include: 

• Providing the Dr. Ghulam Dastgir and Sarfraz Dastgir scholarship to high school students going to college.
• Providing hundreds of meals to families in the community every Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas.
• Regularly donating food to families, churches and homeless shelters. 
• Sponsoring local teams, events focused on first responders and the Special Olympics.
• Expanding their efforts overseas by donating to orphanages in India and Uganda and more. 

“Being involved in the community is important to me as an educator and someone that is involved in public service,” shared Quire. “It's very important that you don't just serve the people, but that you as a business, eat, play and work with those people as well. And so I'm really putting God first and giving back to others. That's been a principle that I think is important, because if you do that, then it starts to make a difference.”

All of these efforts were recognized in early 2026 when the local Subway team was awarded the 2026 Subway Franchisee of the Year Service Award. The award recognizes a franchisee who stood out amongst their peers, provided an exceptional contribution to building the brand and saw success across multiple areas, including overall territory results, high sales and communication performance indicators and positive contributions to the local community.

“We were blessed to have won the Subway Franchisee of the Year Service Award at the annual Subway convention in Washington D.C. This is a reflection on our amazing team and the wonderful community that we serve,” shared Dastgir. 

Finally, the team worked to improve the customer service that greets the community every time they walk through the door. 

“My crew that I have now is amazing, they're awesome,” shared Crystal Ramirez, general manager for the Hope Mills Subway location. “I've had customers come in, and they'll be like ‘What happened to this place?’” 

“I'd say we try and go above and beyond as far as customer service goes. It's really the only thing that can separate us. The restaurant business is so, so competitive,” shared Seefeldt. “If you take care of the customers, have a clean restaurant and take care of your employees, then yeah, you can do well.”