New Panera Bread No Registers - Pay or Not You Decide

This thread is 3 years old. I want to know how they are doing. Are the actually making money aside from covering the expenses?

I looked and found this as they just opened another location in Boston Jan 2013:

“Nobody thought this could be done. I love figuring it out and seeing how it could work,” Shaich said in a recent interview at the 3 Center Plaza cafe. “It’s a powerful study of humanity — will people do the right thing?”

So far, at other cafes people are doing just that. The nonprofit restaurants bring in 70 to 75 percent of the retail value of the food served, said Kate Antonacci, project manager of Panera Cares, which is run by Panera Bread Foundation, a charitable organization.

To achieve that, it’s estimated 60 percent of patrons give the suggested donation (the full price charged for food at other Paneras), roughly 20 percent offer more money, and another 20 percent leave less, or nothing at all.

www.bostonglobe.com... mcufA44iwMNdX2kywhI/story.html

70 to 75 percent sounds really good because most food chains make way more profit than they should by using the cheapest labor, ingredients, and padding the price. In other words, these people are making what should be a normal profit - and it's tax free too. I wonder if Starbucks hates them.

If you can run a non profit like this and make money to feed your family, have a nice house etc all within the rules of the game, then This is the place you wanna be. I wonder how much the owners and employees are allowed to make.

They now have 5 of these stores: Clayton, Mo., Dearborn, Mich., Portland, Ore., Chicago Ill, and Boston Mass.

reply to post by JohnPhoenix



I live within 1 mile of the first one they opened and they are doing great.

I personally have been in there many times, and it's packed most of the day.

The employees are paid the going rate and the owners are Panera Corporate, so they are not independently owned.