Subway rolls out order-ahead app and online ordering

Subway mobile ordering allows customers to pay ahead. (Subway Restaurants)

Now, getting a footlong won't be such a stretch.

Subway Wednesday launched two brand new digital features that will make ordering your sandwich a whole lot easier.

The new smartphone order-and-pay-ahead app is available on both Android and Apple devices and its revamped website allows for quick online ordering to your nearest location.

The release of the app follows in the footsteps of popular chains like Starbucks and Taco Bell, which recently released similar ordering options for customers. But unlike its predecessors, Subway is the first restaurant chain to offer both Apple Pay and Android Pay as payment options through the app, and will soon roll out a PayPal option. Users can also opt to pay by traditional debit or credit card.

Starbucks users  must use Apple Pay or a pre-loaded Starbucks card while Taco Bell app users have to use a gift card or upload personal credit card information.

By numbers, Subway is the largest fast food chain in the U.S. with 27,000 locations. The order-ahead feature is available at all of them. Los Angeles-based Subway restaurant manager Valencia Johnson cited the “key role” mobile plays in customers’ lives ahead of the app roll out, reports Eater.

Trying to take back its reign as the country’s favorite “healthy fast food” eatery (that honor that now belongs to Chipotle), Subway is looking for ways to win back the millennial clientele, focused more on natural ingredients and access to more options, with a streamlined ordering process.