Panera Bread Company is an American bakery-café fast-casual restaurant chain, offering bakery items, pasta, salads, sandwiches, soups, and specialty drinks. Founded in 1987 as Paradise Bakery & Cafe, a community bakery, they rebranded as Panera Bread in September 2015. Today, over 2,100 bakery cafes operate under the Panera Bread or Saint Louis Bread Company in 48 states and Ontario, Canada. Panera was acquired by JAB Holding Co. in 2017 for $7.5 billion and became a private company. They are now headquartered in Sunset Hills, MO.
JAB Holding Company is a German conglomerate that includes investments in companies operating in consumer goods, forestry, coffee, luxury, fashion, animal health, and fast food, among others. JAB Holding Company owns Bagel Brands, Caribou Coffee, Einstein Noah Restaurant Group, Espresso House, Krispy Kreme, Peet’s Coffee, and Pret a Manger, as well as Keurig and Dr. Pepper. Established in 2012 as a partner-led investment firm, with $9B of invested capital, today the company manages over $50B in capital. JAB Holding Company is headquartered in Luxembourg.
Guarantor:
Chicago Bread is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hamra Enterprises. Hamra Enterprises is a dynamic organization owned and founded in 1975 by the Hamra family with its headquarters in Springfield, Missouri, and includes four restaurant brands with more than 7,400 employees in 11 states: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Missouri, Mississippi, New Hampshire, and Tennessee. Hamra Enterprises owns and operates 196 restaurants across the eastern half of the United States under the Wendy’s, Noodles and Company, Panera, and Caribou Coffee brands. Of those, 26 Wendy’s restaurants and 38 Panera Bread cafés are in the greater Chicago area.