No BLTs at Silver Spring Potbelly

The downtown Silver Spring Potbelly (a sandwich fast food place) had a sign that said due to cold weather there weren't enough tomatoes, so for a temporary time sandwiches would come without them.

Not surprisingly since this is not the time of year to buy Maryland tomatoes, this is happening throughout the country.

Potbelly Sandwich Works in downtown Fort Worth put up a sign saying it was not packing subs with tomato slices because of the situation. Sysco, a major food service distributor, told its wholesale customers that produce suppliers have broken contracts, using a weather-related "act of God" clause, according to its Internet posting.

-From this article

Wendy's is using a different trick, which is not putting on tomatoes unless people ask (link)

An economic analysis would suggest that it is not that there aren't enough tomatoes, it's that they have gotten too expensive to give away free on a sandwich. Potbelly could add a tomato charge, but the hassle of figuring out the pricing and customer push back might not be worth the extra bit of revenue.

Plus, given the quality of tomatoes the above sandwiches use, I don't think we are missing much.