Confirmation this week that an incoming national sub-sandwich franchise will occupy a single, regulation-sized commercial unit has plunged a sizeable contingent of local residents into what one community member described as “a grief I was not prepared for.”

The franchise — which agents on this beat have agreed to identify only as “a national sub-sandwich chain with a thematic name” — is slated to open later this year in a vacant downtown unit, a development first reported in a community Facebook group by a resident who clarified she is “not normally one to post.”

The disappointment, according to multiple sources, stems from a widely-held belief in the township that the unit had been promised to become a “giant superstore” version of the chain — a structure several residents describe as having been “discussed at length” by elected officials, despite no such discussion appearing in any council minutes, agenda, or recorded utterance.

“They said it was going to be massive,” said one local man, reached by phone Wednesday. “Two storeys. A drive-thru. Possibly a patio. I told my wife. I told the guys at the shop. Now they’re telling me it’s just going to be — what — a regular sub place? With chairs? And, like, a counter?”

A second resident, who asked not to be named because she has “already said too much,” reported that she had personally been picturing “more of a warehouse situation.” She had, she said, begun mentally mapping the parking lot.

Reached for comment, a spokesperson for the franchise issued the following statement: “We are excited to bring our sandwiches to the community in a standard-format retail location of approximately the size all of our other locations are.” The spokesperson, asked directly whether the location would in fact be a superstore, paused for what sources timed at “eleven full seconds” before replying, “No. It will be a sub shop.”

The denial has done little to slow community speculation. By Thursday morning, the original post had attracted over two hundred comments, including theories that:

• The “real” superstore is being built on a separate site, location to be determined by reading between the lines of a recent municipal newsletter
• The franchise downsized its plans after pressure from “you-know-who”
• The smaller footprint is a soft launch, and the superstore will quietly appear in Phase Two
• One commenter remains convinced the unit will be “two sub shops, end to end,” a configuration she describes as “essentially a superstore, when you think about it”

Local officials, asked for clarity, have responded with a uniform statement of “we did not promise that,” a phrase residents have already begun describing as “exactly what someone who promised that would say.”

In a related development, several community members have expressed renewed concern that the township still has no scheduled World Cup watch parties, a grievance that has now been raised in the same comment thread on four separate occasions, each time as if for the first time.

“It’s a question of priorities,” said one resident, who declined to elaborate on which priorities, or whose. “We were promised things. And now we are receiving — sandwiches. Of a normal size.”

The sub shop is expected to open in the fall. It will, by all available evidence, be a sub shop.