. Rosenthal based his business on that of the sourdough bakeries then popular in San Francisco, where he went to learn the sour dough baking method. Our History The Panera Bread® legacy began in 1981 as Au Bon Pain Co., Inc. Panera Bread Company operates a retail bakery-cafe business and franchising business under the concept names Panera Bread Company and Saint Louis Bread Company. Ken had fallen in love with sourdough bread during a trip to San Francisco and, in 1987, opened his first bread bakery in his native St Louis. However, once teaming up with Panera, a franchised bakery-café was not so tied up by operating regulations that it could not take initiatives to keep its customers' loyalty. On the average, company-owned Au Bon Pain bakery-cafés generated about $940,000 each, while the Panera/St. 1987. Louis Bread Company had entered new markets and continued to grow, opening 51 company owned bakery-cafés and 44 franchise-operated units. By 1995, the company had logged its first net loss, and in 1996 was still struggling to regain profitability. During the early expansion of Au Bon Pain, another bakery-café, St. Louis Bread, started up in Kirkwood, Missouri, in 1987. Panera became a leader in the burgeoning fast-casual restaurant segment. And it has shown that customers do not have to get comfortable with boring even in the food sector with the creativity it h… In July 2017, JAB acquired Panera in a $7.5 billion deal and took it private. Most of the bakery-cafés were located in and around major urban centers, including Boston, other New England cities, New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Washington, D.C., Columbus, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Los Angeles, Atlanta, and, outside the U.S., Santiago, Chile. In 1987, Ken and Linda Rosenthal founded The St Louis Bread Company with the first location in Kirkwood, Missouri. At Panera Bread Mequon, that's good eating and that's why we're serving clean food without artificial preservatives, sweeteners, flavors or colors from artificial sources. Despite its growth and new strategies, Au Bon Pain faced problems in the mid 1990s, including disappointing, sluggish sales. $314.93 0(0%) 9:00AM EST. It opened more than 50 new bakery-cafés by the end of the third quarter, and in December announced plans to enter Rhode Island, its 28th state. Panera Bread Catering Ordering Help Meet My Panera® Sign In Register Rapid Pick-Up. Panera Bread Company (PNRA) stock price, charts, trades & the US's most popular discussion forums. The Rosenthals, concerned about quality, expanded the business fairly cautiously. Panera Bread lovers are not happy with a new viral TikTok. As reported in a July 15, 2001 article in Restaurants & Institutions, the company's number one rule--stipulated by Mike Kupstas, vice president of franchising and brand communications--was "do whatever it takes to satisfy and make customers happy.". It grew very quickly, however, moving into large urban markets in New England and other Eastern states. Until 1999, the company was named Au Bon Pain, but in that year it sold off its Au Bon Pain division and adopted its current name from its other principal division. It had already tapped deeply into the high-traffic, eastern city markets, and it needed to branch into some fresh markets. Top Ranked Predictable Companies. Its sales between 1999 and 2000 had grown by a whopping 73.6 percent, and its number of units in 2000 had grown by 45 percent over the previous year. In many ways, the new chain was a pioneering undertaking, one of the first to develop a concept that became popular in the next decade: the bakery-café, offering on-site service for sit down customers. The Panera Bread fast casual restaurants were conceptualized to be bakery-centric and bread-focused. Clean food served in a warm, welcoming environment, by people who care. Panera Bread Company History Timeline. Although most of the chain's units operate under the Panera name, in the St. Louis area they do business as St. Louis Bread Co. The restaurants tried to offer the same meals as in regular restaurants, with some extras, such as day-old bread offered for free. In fact, Panera Bread is one of the U.S. restaurant chains credited as being the driving force behind the artisanal bread craze in the U.S. Saint Louis Bread Company was renamed Panera to position it for national growth. The North American sandwich chain Panera Bread began as a single cookie shop called the Cookie Jar, which opened in downtown Boston in 1981. Panera Bread and its subsidiaries operate a retail bakery-cafe business and franchising business under the concept names Panera Bread®, Saint Louis Bread Co®, and Paradise Bakery & Cafe®. By the end of 1996, Au Bon Pain had grown to 231 company-run and 58 franchised bakery-cafés. In 1981, he was joined by Ronald M. Shaich, and the pair formed Au Bon Pain Co. as a partnership. Its founder, Ken Rosenthal, and his wife, ventured into the restaurant business at the insistence of his brother. As Panera proudly noted, many of the franchisees were either former owners or owners of major fast foot franchises, including McDonald's, Wendy's, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell. Missouri-based Panera Bread Company operates over 309 bakery-cafés in 29 states, with a principal focus on specialty breads, especially its artisan and sourdough breads. Panera Bread was the very first chain in America to post calorie information about all of its products. Following Kane's merger with CNA Financial Corp. in 1969, Kane became chairman and CEO of Healthco Inc., CNA's health-care subsidiary. It was also picking up important franchisees without trouble, an example being Donald Strang III, whose family's hospitality company in Cleveland was then operating 57 Applebee's restaurants. These pages offer an overview of Panera Bread, from a history of the company to biographies of our management team, to a listing of recent awards and recognition. Panera Bread Franchise Opportunities – History. When a new Panera restaurant is opened, the “mother” of the first Panera bread cooked in the 1980s is taken there no matter how far the new bakery is located. Louis Bakery units generated about $1.1 million per outlet. At Panera Bread Eau Claire - Shoppes at Oakwood, that's good eating and that's why we're serving clean food without artificial preservatives, sweeteners, flavors or colors from artificial sources. By the end of 2000, the company was the clear leader in system-wide sales growth among six bakery-café chains, which included, among others, Corner Bakery and Le Madeleine Bakery & Café. However, Panera Bread does not franchise individual bakery-cafés; rather, it sells multi-store area development agreements. Free forex prices, toplists, indices and lots more. As concepts, the Au Bon Pain and St. Louis Bakery Company stores were very similar. In every community, our customers have responded with enthusiastic support and shown us that indeed 'Fresh bread makes friends.'. He had also been a regional manager for the Original Cookie Co. Kane had behind him 14 years as an executive officer of Kane Financial Corp., a family-owned finance and investment firm. We are Panera Bread and we believe that good food can bring out the best in all of us. Panera Bread Co Class A. Not Rated. Louis Bread division would enter new markets and continue to grow at a solid clip. The company's chief strategy was to provide high quality, fresh foods at reasonable prices and with greater variety than its chief market competitors. Meanwhile, in 1991, Au Bon Pain went public, made its initial public offering (IPO), and continued its growth through expansion of its operations and acquisitions. By November 1999, contractual commitments for opening new stores had reached 600 and were being negotiated. By 1990, they had grown the company to just five stores, but by 1993, when they first started franchising units, the chain had grown to 20 bakery-cafés. About 68 percent of its bakery-cafés are franchise units, and the remainder are owned by the company. It ranked a strong third among the top 400 chain leaders in sales growth behind Buca di Beppo and Famous Dave's, and its prospects for continued growth remained excellent. Almost all franchisees agreed to open a minimum of two dozen or so stores, all within a single, entire market area. Panera Bread Company has a fairly detailed and colorful history. The company's targeted customers were principally urban white-collar workers, suburban residents, and shoppers, students, and travelers with busy schedules to keep. By the end of 1999, a year in which it opened units in 7 new states, the Panera Bread Company, as it was newly named, was operating in 25 states spread from Massachusetts to Florida and Michigan to Texas. Significantly, Panera no longer had to deal with investors who wanted to open only one or two units. Moreover, the company's competition was rapidly stiffening, thanks to the fact that the bagel and coffee café concept hit its faddish stride at about the same time. Panera bread has been around from 1976. In that year, the company appeared on Inc. magazine's list of the 500 fastest-growing companies in the U.S. JAB Holding Co. has agreed to acquire Panera Bread Co., bringing 36 years of the bakery-café chain’s innovations into its portfolio. For the first time, too, the majority of the 166 units (86) were owned by franchisees; the remaining 80 were company owned. And we're always finding new ways to make every soup, salad, sandwich and sweet bakery treat you eat at Panera the best (and cleanest) it can be. Two years later, Louis I. Kane bought the business and began expanding in the Boston area. LP., a New York investment firm, its Au Bon Pain Division. A major opportunity came in 1993, when Au Bon Pain acquired the St. Louis Bread Company. Louis Bakery Company with its group of company-owned bakery-cafés and its related franchise operations. April 26, 2017 - Panera Bread Co. (US:PNRA) has filed a financial statement reporting Profit Loss of $42,168,000 USD. Both Kane and Shaich brought diverse experience to the enterprise. 1976-92: Au Bon Pain and St. Louis Bread Are Founded. The remaining 54 company-owned bakery-cafés and 10 franchise units were St. Louis Bakery Company units. Investing.com has all the historical stock data including the closing price, open, high, low, change and % change. Transformation #3 In 1998, Ron determined that Panera had the potential to be nationally dominant, but it would require all of our resources. Prior to undertaking their joint venture, Shaich was president of Targeting Systems Inc., a political consulting firm. As of Dec 29 2015, Co.'s retail operations consisted of 901 Co.-owned bakery-cafes and … Panera Bread’s mission and vision statement are exactly what any future-oriented company would wish for especially while operating in some of the most dynamic and competitive sectors. Lines and paragraphs break automatically. Select Date & Time 0 $0.00. Niren Chaudhary is President/CEO at Panera Bread Co. See Niren Chaudhary's compensation, career history, education, & memberships. For the 1996 fiscal year, total sales generated by the company-owned stores and its franchised units reached approximately $259 million. Over the course of its ownership by Au Bon Pain Co., Inc., the Panera/St. The company maintains 39 of these, with commitments to grow its chain to 733 bakery-cafés through agreements already made. Most of the bakery-cafés, which offer in-house eating as well as take-out service, are in suburban locations, giving the company a strong growth potential and less competition in its specialty market niche. The rapid expansion of its urban units created operational problems and involved the company in some sour-turning real estate deals. Founded by Louis Kane and Ron Shaich, the company prospered along the east coast of the United States and internationally throughout the 1980s and 1990s and became the dominant operator within the bakery-cafe category. The company maintains 39 of these, with commitments to grow its chain to 733 bakery-cafés through agree… Of the 231 company-operated units, 177 were Au Bon Pain owned and operated outlets and 54 were Au Bon Pain franchise-operated bakery-cafés. Ronald Shaich, CEO and chair man of Panera bread was the person who created the company together with the master baker called Shaich who … Principal Competitors: AFC Enterprises, Inc.; Brinker International, Inc.; New World Restaurant Group, Inc.; Starbucks Corporation. Both specialized in high quality foods, served for breakfast and lunch. After the chain allowed its customers to use Wi-Fi for free, sales increased by an impressive 15 percent. As a casual restaurant specializing in bakery, Panera Bread has never disappointed its customers with its level of quality. Our focus on elevating the guest experience intensified in the 2000s. The central metaphor behind the Panera logo is that of so-called Mother Bread. 1993-97: Company Acquires the St. Louis Bread Company before Sales Turn Sluggish. According to Panera's president, Rick Postle, as reported in a Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News release, one of the franchise owners had sold off 45 McDonald's units to invest in Panera. The concept specializes in high quality food for breakfast and lunch, including fresh baked goods, made-to … To support its bakery-café network, Panera also operates 11 fresh dough facilities. The St. Louis Bread … To understand it, one has to know that while making sourdough bread the Panera bakers use a small amount of the dough used to cook the previous batch of bread dough. Discover historical prices for PNRA stock on Yahoo Finance. The original Panera Bread Mission statement had an extremely narrow focus on one product offering—bread. In 1976, Pavallier opened the first Au Bon Pain in Boston's celebrated and historic Faneuil Hall Marketplace, the same year in which, after extensive renovations, that facility opened for business. Au Bon Pain, which figures importantly in the lineage of Panera Bread Co., started out as a showcase operation for Pavallier BVP SA, a French manufacturer of commercial ovens. As a result, in 1999 all of the Au Bon Pain Co. Inc. divisions were sold, and the remaining company was renamed Panera LLC. In 1992, after working out a franchise development agreement in Chile, the company also began branching into foreign markets. Ronald Shaich, Panera's CEO and chairman, owns approximately 26 percent of the public company. Panera Bread was originally the Au Bon Pain Co., which purchased the St. Louis Bread Company in 1993 as its headquarters, then changed the company name to Panera Bread and began a nationwide expansion. The Rosenthals invested $150,000 and received a $150,000 Small Business Administration loan. Initially, the chain started out as three Boston-area bakeries and a single cookie store that served both cookies and breads and croissants to its customers. The 80,000 square-foot plant tripled the capacity of its older production facility in South Boston. Among other things, sticking to some rigorous requirements that all prospective franchisees had to meet, it was positioned to accept only one out of every 400 franchise applicants, a luxury that few companies could afford. The $72 million deal was consummated on May 16, 1999, when Bruckmann, Rosser, Sherrill & Co. took that division its separate way as ABP, Inc., a private company. About 68 percent of its bakery-cafés are franchise units, and the remainder are owned by the company. In 1999, all Au Bon Pain divisions were sold to an investment firm so resources could be directed toward growing Panera. Number Six: At One Point, it Was America’s Largest Free Wi-Fi Provider. Panera Bread owns and operates a chain of restaurants that offers soups, salads, pasta, sandwiches and pastries. During 2000, Panera grew at what the St. Louis Business Journal termed "a blistering rate." Previously, on October 26, 2016, Panera Bread Co. reported Profit Loss of $31,910,000 USD. The logo of Panera illustrates a woman with flowing hair caressing a loaf of bread which came to be known as “Mother Bread” and created the differential for the chain. The video, allegedly shot by an employee at the chain, seems to show footage from the kitchen of one of its restaurants. Their menus included fresh baked goods, made-to-order sandwiches, soups, salads, and custom-roasted coffees as well as other beverages. Panera thus began the new century in fine fettle. Read about the office locations, company history, leadership teams, and employee perks. Kane had also served as a director and executive committee member for Colombo Inc., a yogurt manufacturer and distributor. Panera entered the community café business with Panera Cares, a nonprofit division of the restaurant chain that at one point had five stores. Panera Bread is a limited-service fast-casual restaurant company. Select Cafe Time. At that the time the deal was struck, St. Louis Bread had 19 company owned and operated bakery-cafés and one franchised outlet. 2000-01: Accelerated Growth Promises a Solid Future for Panera. Number 8860726. Discover all the key insights that make people want to work here. Registered in England and Wales. 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