No one at Panera Bread Co. seems to have noticed the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression.

While the rest of the restaurant industry has been hustling to slash prices and offer two-for-one deals to lure customers, the Richmond Heights-based company has instead been rolling out new higher-priced salmon salads and a Cuban chicken panini.

And as other chains have halted or slowed the opening of new stores, Panera has continued to aggressively expand. This year, it’s on pace to launch a new restaurant every 4 or 5 days.

“We took a position going into the recession which was contrarian to what most people did,” said Ron Shaich, the company’s chief executive. “The strategy was to stay consistent and not to react to the recession … most of our competitors were reacting by cutting corners, pulling cost out of their menu, cheapening their food, and pulling labor out of their stores.”

Continue reading . . .

RestaurantNews.com provides restaurant press release distribution.
For more information: http://www.RestaurantNews.com/press-release/



Subscribe to our RSS feed!