Panera Bread Founder Ron Shaich on Fast Casual Dining

Masters in Business

Bloomberg

Business, Entrepreneurship, Investing

4.4 • 2.2K Ratings

🗓️ 22 May 2025

⏱️ 64 minutes

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Summary

Barry speaks with Ron Shaich, co-founder of Au Bon Pain and founder and former chairman and CEO of Panera Bread. A key part of building that brand, today Shaich is a lead investor in Cava, Tatte, Life Alive and Level99, continuing a long and extensive career in the restaurant and fast casual business. He’s credited with defining the fast causal segment. Shaich makes his investments through Act III Holdings, a more than $1 billion evergreen investment vehicle. Shaich has twice been recognized as an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year, selected as the 2018 Restaurant Leader of the Year and was presented the prestigious Nation’s Restaurant News Pioneer Award as one of the most significant contributors in the history of the restaurant business.

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1:21.5	This week on the podcast, what can I say?
1:24.3	Ron Shake is a legend in the fast casual dining space.
1:29.4	He began with a single restaurant, a single cookie store, and eventually parlayed that
1:36.2	into a series of acquisitions, mergers, expansions, ultimately leading to the Panera bread
1:43.9	concept, which now has 2,000 locations and does about
1:49.7	$6.5 billion. He sold the company in 2017 or so for about $7.5 billion. He now runs Act 3, which is a fascinating sort of venture funds.
2:05.7	One of their big firms is Kava, Fast Mentoring Cuisine. What can I tell you, the guy is a brilliant
	...

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