Shaich: 1990s fast food became like gasoline stations for the body
Ron Shaich · Panera Bread/Au Bon Pain: Ron Shaich · Apr 30, 2018 · at 24:53
Ron Shaich explains the market shift that opened the opportunity for fast-casual dining in the 1990s.
0:00 / 0:18exact quote · 18.8s
720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“Post-World War II, fast food was special. You fast forward it to the 1990 with 60,000 drive-throughs in America. Fast food had become self-service gasoline stations for the human body, and the reality of it was, That there were many consumers that were holding their noses when they went into fast food.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Ron Shaich
Shaich: Public markets force CEOs into short-term cost-cutting over transformative bets
“There's a pervasive sense of short-termism that has invaded our markets. The reality is, when you have such short-term pressure on our CEOs, they react. And what that ends up meaning is cost-cutting. And they avoid the kind of transformative events that drove …”
Shaich: Au Bon Pain was the first example of fast casual dining
“And for people who were working in white collar jobs increasingly in urban settings, this was the first example of what we later came to call fast casual. This was an attempt to do something that was better But in a quick service mode.”
Shaich: Public market short-termism forces CEOs into cost-cutting over transformative bets
“There's a pervasive sense of short-termism that has invaded our markets. The reality is, when you have such short-term pressure on our CEOs, they react. And what that ends up meaning is cost-cutting. And they avoid the kind of transformative events that drove …”
Shaich won a board battle with two votes against VCs' three
“It was a huge boardroom struggle, because I had two votes, our venture capitalists had three, and all of them had invested in Au Bon Pain.”
Shaich: Panera tripled its stock price during the Great Recession
“We said this is the time to build competitive advantage, and ultimately we tripled the stock through the recession.”
Shaich: Au Bon Pain pioneered the fast-casual restaurant category
“What the bakery cafe was an alternative between down and dirty fast food. And fine dining. And for people who were working in white collar jobs increasingly in urban settings, this was the first example of what we later came to call fast casual.”