The plan went like this: The menus at Panera Cares Café in Dearborn wouldn’t list prices, only suggested donations, and rather than handing money to a clerk, customers would drop their coins and bills into donation bins at the counter.
They could pay the full suggested price. Or pay more. Or pay less — even nothing — if that’s all they could afford. But it would be a place where everyone who needed a meal could get one.
The unspoken question was, could the café sustain itself — pay its bills and cover its costs — when its survival depended on customers doing the right thing? Or would people choose to eat for little or nothing, even when they could afford to pay?
In many ways, “it was a test of humanity,” says Ron Shaich, president of the Panera Bread Foundation and executive chairman of the Panera company.