Upper Crust Move over, sub, hero and hoagie: the sandwich has gone upscale. And for enterprising entrepreneurs, it's the best thing since sliced bread.

The year is 1765. A marathon card-playing session is underway ina London club. One famished player, John Montagu, the fourth Earlof Sandwich, orders a bit of salted beef between two slices oftoasted bread. Within a few short years, the tasty and portablesandwich, as it came to be called, was the favorite food of workingpeople all over England.

More than two hundred years later, sandwiches have become anAmerican fast-food staple. Sandwich chains such as Subway andBlimpie have thousands of outlets nationwide; sandwich franchisescan even be found in exotic locales like Saudi Arabia and Taiwan.While the market for sandwiches seems to be very close to becomingsaturated, according to retail and restaurant marketing consultantRay Coen, the truth is there's always room at the top forrestaurants offering higher quality at a correspondingly higherprice. "In every [fast-food] category, after the initialexpansion, there comes segmentation, because the only way to grow acategory beyond a certain point is for new entries to develop adifferent position [for themselves]," says Coen. "Upscalesandwich shops are definitely identifying a new segmentposition."

Like politicians and actors, food items can undergo imagemakeovers to improve their salability. Take Ruth's Chris SteakHouse, the wildly successful Metairie, Louisiana-based steakhousechain. When Ruth's started franchising in 1976, many felt itwould drown in a sea of steakhouse competitors, all offeringessentially the same food. But Ruth's took the steakhouseconcept upscale, serving gourmet beef on a white tablecloth with agood bottle of wine. While a steak at Ruth's was more expensivethan one at, say, Sizzler, diners with a taste (and budget) forquality food flocked to Ruth's in droves.