It was a good idea while it lasted.
The St. Louis Bread Co. Cares Community Café, which allows patrons to decide how much they want to pay for their meals, is closing its doors on Tuesday.
The name-your-own-price community café concept opened in 2010 in an already-existing St. Louis Bread Co. restaurant at 10 South Central Avenue in Clayton. The idea was that people who could afford a suggested price for the food would pay it — or more — thus subsidizing those who could only afford to pay a portion of the price, or none at all.
Ron Shaich, the founder and executive chairman of the board of Panera — which includes St. Louis Bread Co. — said the location is closing because "we were on a month-to-month lease and the store requires significant investment. The nature of the economics did not make sense."
In the seven years that the pay-what-you-can-afford concept was in force in Clayton, "we served probably a half-million meals through this cafe, all at no set prices, as a gift to the community," Shaich said in a phone call from Boston.
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"We loved it, it worked well, it proved that the idea would work."
It worked well enough to spread to other locations in Chicago, Dearborn, Mich., Portland, Ore., and Boston. Only the Boston location remains open, though Shaich said the restaurants combined to sell more than 2 million meals over the years.
Shaich stepped down as CEO of Panera on Jan. 1. Last July, Panera was acquired by the Luxembourg-based JAB Holding Co., which also owns Krispy Kreme, Caribou Coffee and more.
Shaich said that, on average, customers paid about 85 percent of the suggested price, a fact that heartens him.
"The thing that amazed me over the past seven years is that people are fundamentally good. … We found that most people did the right thing. And that's a wonderful, wonderful statement about humanity."
Daniel Neman
Daniel Neman is a retail business writer for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
