A New York Post report found that the company has experienced a 25 percent decline in customer traffic over the past five years — mostly due to increased competition, price pressures, a lack of healthier options — and a few public relations snafus (remember Jared?). The company is also facing profit pressures as many territories have been maxed out and “growth has all but stopped in the U.S.” Business Insider reports that the company’s sales fell 1.7 percent in 2016 and same-store sales have dropped 13 percent since 2013. The chain closed more than stores than it opened during that period.

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To counter this trend, the company this January committing $25 million for a two-month marketing promotion that will bring back a limited-time, $4.99 footlong sandwich. Will it work?

A group of franchise owners aren’t optimistic. They believe that the promotion, which does not include any reimbursement for the store owners, will cut into their already razor-thin margins and about 400 of them have signed a petition protesting the deal.

“The national promotional focus over the past five years … has decimated [us] and left many franchisees unprofitable and even insolvent,” a group of petitioners said in a letter to company management. “We need to improve our food and we need to be bold about it,” one franchiser, who wants the company to test out new flavors like teriyaki glaze and adobo chicken seasoning wrote in the petition. “We are too cautious with our flavors.”