‘Whatever makes you happy.’ New sub shop opens in Manatee County
Grant Strayer was polishing off a finance degree from Indiana University at the height of COVID-19.
“And then I started thinking about just what would I like to do, if I could do anything,” he said.
From that thought, a restaurant was born. Strayer recruited high school and college friends to launch a new sandwich shop called Gateway Subs in St. Petersburg. Since its debut in 2021, Gateway Subs has expanded to six locations, including a new Ellenton shop that opened in June.
Located at 2215 60th Ave. E., Ellenton’s Gateway Subs offers a variety of breakfast and lunch sandwiches, coffee and baked goods.
“We slice everything to order,” Strayer said. “Whatever makes you happy, makes us happy. We take you down the line, dress it up just the way you need. We also play around with some fun flavors.”
Some of those fun flavors include a customer favorite, the Cool Ranch Rider. That sandwich features a Buffalo chicken breast and Cool Ranch Doritos with other toppings.
Strayer said most of their sandwiches are loaded with a top and bottom layer of meat, with veggies and toppings in between.
“So it’s a little bit easier to eat,” he said.
Some other sandwich items include the Plain Jane, Ultimate Italian, Looney Tuna, Funny You Should Ask, Brycer and more.
Gateway Subs opens in Ellenton
With five shops in the Tampa-St. Petersburg area, the Ellenton shop is Gateway Subs’ first endeavor south of the Skyway.
Morgan Zook, one of the company’s founding members, said a customer with ties to Benderson Development stumbled into their original location at 3112 Third Ave. N. Unit B, St. Petersburg.
“She’s like, ‘We need this in one of our locations,’” Zook said.
After viewing five Benderson properties between Ellenton and Naples, they picked a property near the entrance to the Ellenton Premium Outlets, which was previously home to a Subway.
“(We) changed the colors, (and) put all our own equipment in,” Zook said.
Zook said bread is delivered almost daily, the vegetables are cut fresh every day, and the meat is sliced in front of the customer.
“Every Monday, we do Bison Meatball Monday,” Zook said. “We make bison meatballs in-house from scratch and marinara in-house from scratch.”
What’s in a logo?
The Gateway Subs logo is a bison — inspired by Strayer’s time spent working on a bison farm in Indiana.
“When a storm’s coming, cattle will run away from the storm and be in it for longer,” Strayer said. “And then bison, when a storm comes, they’ll run through it and get to the other side quicker.”
Strayer said that as a team and company, they adopt that attitude by facing their adversity and getting to the other side a little bit quicker.
Besides subs, Gateway also sells baked goods such as cinnamon rolls, cheesecakes and cookies — made with Strayer’s “mother’s secret cookie recipe.”
“One of our favorite sayings is we’re Epicureans, who love good business and treat people like people rather than objects,” Strayer said.
The Ellenton restaurant is open daily from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.
For more information, visit GatewaySubs.com.
This story was originally published July 25, 2025 at 11:00 AM.
