In our selfless quest to enrich your otherwise dreary life, we have told you about the Starbucks located at the CIA, in case you feel the need to enjoy your favorite caffeine-charged pick-me-up without having to worry that foreign spies are reporting whether you requested fat-free whipped cream with your Cafe Mocha. We’ve also told you about the food court in the center of the Pentagon that will be one of the first places to vaporize when World War III is declared.

You may find yourself still feeling a bit peckish and in need of another Cold War themed meal, but you’d prefer not being quite as exposed to incoming enemy attack. If so, we suggest you check out the Subway restaurant designed to withstand the end of the world. If this place works the way its designers intended, even when the rest of humanity has been reduced to glow-in-the-dark ashes, you can still order a fresh foot-long B.M.T. with a side order of full-scale nuclear retaliation.

Where is this Doomsday-proof sandwich shop? It is deep within a fortress buried beneath 2,000 feet of granite in Colorado Springs, inside one of the most secure military installations on the planet. Welcome to the Cheyenne Mountain Complex — or, as NORAD insiders probably call it, “the only place where you can plan for the destruction of humanity and still keep an eye on your waistline.”

What Is NORAD, and Why Does It Need a Deli?

Before we get into the specifics of this peculiar restaurant, let’s talk about the facility itself. The Cheyenne Mountain Complex isn’t just home to the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD); it’s a high-tech rabbit warren of buildings built to survive nuclear hellfire — and lunchtime hunger pangs.

NORAD is the team tasked with scanning the skies for anything that shouldn’t be there. Planes, missiles, drones, rogue sleighs powered by reindeer — NORAD’s on it. They’re the reason we sleep (somewhat) soundly knowing someone’s watching the radar while we binge 1990s sitcom reruns.

In the event of nuclear war, NORAD becomes the brain stem of the continent, feeding terrifying real-time data to decision-makers who then have to make the worst PowerPoint presentation of their lives. This is why Cheyenne Mountain exists — to keep that function intact even if the outside world is experiencing the kind of apocalypse that even Michael Bay might describe as “a little much.”

Inside Cheyenne Mountain: Military Meets Mall Food Court

The Cheyenne Mountain Complex is more than a bunker — it’s an underground city. Hidden beneath 2,000 feet of granite are 15 steel buildings, some up to three stories tall, mounted on 1,319 industrial springs designed to absorb shockwaves from nearby nuclear blasts. Meanwhile, this writer still can’t get approval for a standing desk. Irrelevant to this topic, you say? Perhaps, but we’re still pretty bummed about it.

Want a tour? (Of NORAD, of course. If you wanted a tour of our office and the sad, lonely space reserved for a standing desk, that would be a tad creepy.) Picture a narrow tunnel carved into the mountain. It’s designed with a curve — not for aesthetics, but to prevent a nuclear blast from rolling in like an angry bowling ball. The only way into the inner chamber is through a set of blast doors weighing 25 tons each, engineered to withstand a 30-megaton detonation just over a mile away. (Translation: If you’re trying to get in without a badge, don’t bother. Even Thor’s hammer isn’t getting past these doors.)

Inside, you’ll find all the essentials of a small town — a command center, a dentist, a chapel (which we expect will be filled to capacity on the day this place was designed for), a fitness room, and yes, a Subway. There’s also a convenience store, medical facilities, and power generators capable of sustaining the complex for months. They even discovered a natural spring during construction, so fresh water is never in short supply. It’s like a luxury doomsday prepper’s dream. Just swap the artisanal jam for missile intercept data and forget about working on your tan — unless it’s the radiation-induced kind.

The Subway That’s Built to Survive Armageddon

One of the 15 buildings inside the mountain — we don’t know which, because disclosure of such info would jeopardize national security — houses the legendary Subway. We’d like to imagine it’s sandwiched (ahem) between missile tracking operations and the bunker breakroom, but we’ll respect classified footlong locations.

Why a Subway? Simple. When you’ve got a skeleton crew of a few hundred personnel tasked with rebooting civilization while intercepting ICBMs, you’ve got to feed them. And if those people have to live underground for weeks or months, they’re going to want more than MREs and existential dread. Subway delivers a little taste of normal in a world gone sideways — customizable, slightly soggy normal.

“Warm Standby” and Cold Cuts

Cheyenne Mountain isn’t operating at full tilt 24/7 anymore. These days, it’s kept in what the military calls “warm standby.” That means with less than an hour’s notice, the facility can fully activate and assume control if Peterson Space Force Base (where NORAD usually operates) goes down. It’s the backup brain, the fail-safe, the spare tire of national defense. But with more salami.

While the average staffer might only spend part of their time here, the mountain has been designed to sustain life completely cut off from the outside world. Independent power, secure comms, filtered air, and even without the underground springs, there’s enough water to fill an Olympic pool or three. It’s not a bad setup, assuming you’re cool with your morning jog taking place on a treadmill next to a rack of surface-to-air missile monitors.

Truth is More Boring Than Fiction

You might have an image in your mind of what the command center of NORAD looks like and there’s a good chance that it comes from one particular movie. If so, prepare to be disappointed: Armageddon doesn’t look nearly as cool and gadgety.

When the creators of the 1983 film WarGames got their first peek at the real NORAD, disappointment ensued. Expecting rows of blinking lights, cathedral-sized war rooms, and a backdrop that screamed “Impending Global Catastrophe,” the filmmakers were met instead with a subdued, functional command center that looked more like a municipal office than the nerve center of nuclear defense. According to production notes and interviews, the NORAD facility simply lacked the cinematic dazzle they craved — so they did what any self-respecting moviemakers would do: they made it up.

The result was the now-iconic War Room, filled with massive screens, glowing tactical displays, and enough blinking lights to land a 747 in the middle of a blizzard. The big display wall showing missile trajectories wasn’t based on any real NORAD screen — it was dreamed up by Hollywood designers desperate to make Cold War anxiety look good on camera. Ironically, their fictional version of NORAD became so influential that it shaped public perception for decades. Ask anyone what NORAD looks like, and you’ll likely get a description closer to WarGames than reality.

In truth, the real command center inside Cheyenne Mountain is utilitarian by design. Function trumps flair. While classified elements remain off-limits, photos of the publicly shown areas reveal modest rows of desks and monitors, lots of grey walls, and the kind of military efficiency you’d expect from a facility designed to endure global catastrophe — not host a tech startup. But hey, it does have a Subway, so it still beats the Commonplace Fun Facts international headquarters.

Intriguing Features of the World’s Most Secure Sandwich Stop

• Shock-absorbing floor springs – 1,319 of them, in fact. Great for earthquakes, awkward for tap dancers.
• Overpressurized air system – Keeps out chemical or biological nasties by making sure air is always pushing out, not in. Your lungs are literally part of the defense strategy.
• Electromagnetic shielding – The buildings are sheathed in metallic oxide varistors. You can’t microwave your lunch here, but the wiring won’t fry when the nukes start popping.
• Backup everything – Power, water, food, even morale (we assume there’s a karaoke machine somewhere, for end-times singalongs. We assume one of the available songs is Tom Lehrer’s “We Will All Go Together When We Go”).

And yes, this entire infrastructure is still used to track Santa every year. Because even in the apocalypse, some traditions must live on — including the tradition of filling out forms and paying your taxes after WWIII.

Final Thoughts from the Fun Facts Bunker

The Cheyenne Mountain Subway may not show up on Yelp, but it’s a vital piece of America’s military resilience — proof that even when facing the collapse of civilization, we still believe in the power of sandwiches. And while the exact coordinates of your cold cut combo remain top secret, rest easy knowing that NORAD is watching the skies, defending the homeland, and yes… serving lunch.

So next time you’re debating whether to add guac for $1.50 extra, remember: there’s someone in a bunker under a mountain, doing the same — with one hand on a sandwich and the other on a missile intercept console.

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