Ron Shaich
👤 PersonAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
That's a whole nother story why we did it, but it was renamed Panera Bread.
And I'm on a beach down in the Caribbean with a friend.
And I'm lamenting this friend.
You know, everybody's fighting.
Everybody's angry at me.
The guys at Obon Pen are angry at me.
Why am I trying to take their capital and shift it to this growth thing, Panera?
The guys in International didn't want to call home.
The guys in Manufacture were trying to figure out why they were in a retail company.
At any rate, we had professional managers in every one.
And I said to this friend, you know, the real shame here, this thing Panera, even though it's the third biggest of our company, it's not the largest.
It's not the name on the door.
The name of the door was Au Bon Pain.
That was the public company.
I said, this thing has the potential to be a nationally dominant company.
For every thousand people say it, one ever makes it.
And it was pretty clear that we had that opportunity.
And I said, you know what?
We're going to screw it up.
We're not going to give it the capital.