Panera Bread
Panera Bread
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Panera Bread

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Panera Bread

Panera Bread Company (/pəˈnɛərə/ pə-NAIR) is an American multinational chain of bakery-café fast casual restaurants with over 2,000 locations, all of which are in the United States and Canada. Its headquarters are in Fenton, Missouri. The chain operates as Saint Louis Bread Company in the Greater St. Louis area, with over 100 locations.

Panera offers a wide array of pastries and baked goods, such as bagels, brownies, cookies, croissants, muffins, and scones. These, along with Panera's artisan breads, are typically baked by an on-staff baker the day before serving. Aside from the bakery section, Panera has a regular menu for dine-in or takeout, including salads, sandwiches, side choices, and soups, as well as coffee, espresso drinks, frozen drinks, fruit smoothies, hot chocolate, iced drinks, lattes, lemonade, and tea.

Panera Bread, formerly owned by Au Bon Pain, is currently owned by JAB Holding Company, which is, in turn, owned by the Reimann family of Germany. Panera was once the largest provider of free Wi-Fi hotspots in the United States.

Ken and Linda Rosenthal founded the St. Louis Bread Company in 1987 after Ken visited sourdough bakery-café La Boulanger in San Francisco at the insistence of his brother. After being fascinated with the process of sourdough making, he was trained to make sourdough under instruction of the owner, Roger Brunello for a year. The first location was opened in Kirkwood, Missouri. The Rosenthals invested $150,000 and received a $150,000 Small Business Administration loan.

Au Bon Pain Co., a public company, purchased the St. Louis Bread Company in 1993 for $23 million.

In 1997, Au Bon Pain changed the company name to Panera, from a word that has roots in the Latin word for "breadbasket" (Classical pānārium, Vulgar pānāria) and is identical to the word for "breadbasket" in Spanish and Catalan. The original name was retained for locations in Missouri. At the same time, the St. Louis Bread Company renovated its 20 bakery-cafés in the St. Louis area.

In May 1999, Au Bon Pain Co. sold the Au Bon Pain chain to the firm Bruckmann, Rosser, Sherrill & Co. for $78 million to focus on the Panera Bread chain.

In 2000, Panera Bread moved its headquarters to Richmond Heights, Missouri.

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