WINDSOR, Conn. — Blimpie has closed its last store in Connecticut, quietly ending the sandwich chain’s presence in the Nutmeg State after decades. The final location, in Windsor, went dark this week, which is the way a 62-year-old chain leaves a state: not with a farewell tour, but with the lights off.
Blimpie, the sub shop that has, over the course of its life, closed more than 1,000 locations, has done the thing it does best one more time. The thing it does is close a location. Connecticut is now, officially, a state without a Blimpie, which is a milestone the state has not, as far as anyone can tell, campaigned for, and which the chain has not, as far as anyone can tell, grieved.
The chain remains in the business of subs, and remains, per its own website, “BIGGER and BETTER than ever.” That is the tagline. It is not, in the specific, the same as being in Connecticut, which is the state, which is no longer a Blimpie state.
The sub, as a category, is the thing. Blimpie is the specific sub. The difference is the thing, and it is the part the remaining Blimpie states are watching, and the part the next state is about to find out about.
THE EXIT, IN ORDER
- 1929: The Blimpie sub is born. The number is one sub.
- Over 62 years: More than 1,000 locations close. The number is the thing.
- This week: The last Connecticut store, in Windsor, closes. The state drops off the map.
- Now: The remaining states watch. The tagline stays the same.
The last Connecticut sub has not been recovered. That is the way these things go, and it is the part the people in Windsor are going to have to live without, the way states do when the lights go off. The remaining Blimpie states have not yet said a word, which is the way the remaining Blimpie states do.
At press time, the Windsor storefront was dark, the sub was on the sidewalk, and the tagline had not, in the specific, changed, which is, in the specific, the point.