St. Louis Bread Co. With Pay-What-You-Want Pricing To Close

CLAYTON, MO — For years, St. Louis Bread Co.'s Cares Community Cafe served soup and sandwiches to area residents at whatever price they could afford. It will close Tuesday, nearly half a million meals later. The cafe opened in 2010 in an existing St. Louis Bread Co. restaurant in downtown Clayton. Some patrons paid little or nothing, while others who could afford to do so paid extra. On average, customers paid about 85 percent of the suggested price.

But Bread Co. founder Ron Shaich, who also stepped down as CEO this week, said the economics no longer made sense. Last year, the company — known nationally as Panera — was acquired by JAB Holdings Co., a European consumer-goods and fast-food conglomerate. The store's location was on a month-to-month lease, and required a significant investment, Shaich said — an investment JAB seemed unwilling to make.

Nonetheless, Shaich told the Post-Dispatch, he is encouraged by the fact that people paid very close to the suggested price for items. "The thing that amazed me over the past seven years is that people are fundamentally good," he said. "...Most people did the right thing. And that's a wonderful, wonderful statement about humanity."

Or, rather, it was a wonderful statement — past tense.

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