• by Teresa Buyikian , March 6, 2026

Apparently everything has a holiday, even meatballs.

This National Meatball Day Subway is using the holiday not just for a customer promo, but to hit a new record.

On March 9, the chain will allow “in-the-know consumers” to upgrade every six-inch “Sub of the Day” and “Meal of the Day” to a footlong at no charge. The reason for the promo? To encourage meatball sub sales as the chain endeavors to sell one million meatballs in a single day.

Subway has done a “Meatball Monday” weekly promotion for years, when a 6-inch Meatball Marinara sub is featured as part of the "Sub of the Day" lineup for $4.99. Now customers can up their meatball intake on what Subway is now calling “Million Meatball Monday."

“With the calendar coincidence of National Meatball Day falling on Meatball Monday this year, Subway is rolling out the red sauce for meatball lovers with a one-day-only deal that's bound to make history,” said Dave Skena, CMO, Subway North America. The goal? “To sell more meatballs than every Scandinavian furniture company combined.”

But even the world’s top sandwich chain has quite a way to go to catch up to the planet’s number-one meatball seller Ikea, which touts somewhere between 1.4 billion to 1.7 billion meatballs sold worldwide per year. In fact, meatballs are the furniture chain’s best-selling item, not home furnishings.

Subway hasn’t disclosed the number of meatballs it sells.