Panera: Ron Shaich. The Big Bet That Changed Fast Food (2018)

In the early 1980s, Ron Shaich took over Au Bon Pain, a struggling group of Boston bakeries, and helped grow it into a national chain with 250 locations. But Ron saw an even bigger opportunity in a small bakery chain in St. Louis. So he made a remarkable gamble: he sold Au Bon Pain to focus entirely on what would become Panera Bread. That bet helped transform the way Americans eat—and turned Panera into a multibillion-dollar business.

What You’ll Learn


How customers asking for sliced baguettes helped Ron discover a bigger business in sandwiches

What he saw in a 19-store bakery chain with surprisingly low real estate costs

Why Ron sold Au Bon Pain after building it into a national chain to concentrate on Panera

How Panera used falling real estate and construction costs to expand during the Great Recession

Why Ron believed staying on Wall Street could threaten the long-term bets that made Panera successful


Production Credits

How I Built This is produced by Podcast Pointman and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.



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