On May 16, exactly one year will have passed since St. Louis-based Panera Bread turned its café at 10. S. Central Ave., in Clayton, into a nonprofit operation. The company’s St. Louis area director Don Hutcheson told The Scoop that the company deems the pay-what-you-like model a success, though there have been a few learning curves.
According to Hutcheson, customers at the café are paying 80 to 85 percent of the suggested donation amount for the items they order. Each week, the location serves approximately 3,600 customers and brings in an average of $20,000. These figures, stated Hutcheson, were what the company needed to break even. “We have fed about 200,000 people. In doing that, we have been able to maintain the ability to sustain ourselves based on donations coming from people we are serving,” he said.
Achieving a self-sustaining level has enabled Panera to add another charity component to the nonprofit café. It has partnered with Covenant House, which provides services to homeless and runaway youths, to offer individuals job and life skills via a 12-week training program. “We have our first class graduating tomorrow night,” added Hutcheson. Upon graduation, the three interns will transfer to jobs at other St. Louis Bread locations, he explained. “The whole piece behind St. Louis Bread Co. Cares is to be self-sustaining and to help others be self-sustaining.” The success of its pilot nonprofit café has also led Panera to open similar cafes in Dearborn, Mich., and Portland, Ore., with plans to open more locations across the country.
There been a few bumps along the road, though, admitted Hutcheson, particularly in providing the public with a clear understanding of the café’s purpose. “We are a community café here to help others who can’t afford to pay full price and to allow people who want to come in to give more; we need those people. We had to make sure we communicated that to people,” said Hutcheson. That includes communicating it to the owners of neighboring cafes, some of whom initially responded negatively to the nonprofit model. “We reached out to them to see how we could help them,” said Hutchenson. “We are not a free café. We are a café that has to be self-sustaining by those that come in. There is a shared responsibility of everyone that comes into the café – they can help out with things in the café, pay what they can; others can pay a little bit more. Once the neighboring cafés understood what we are really about, there hasn’t been any problem.”
This article appears in May 1-31, 2011.