1: “So tell me this,” the young executive asked, “Is Panera almost as good as Donatos?”

“Is he joking?” Panera Bread CEO Ron Shaich thought to himself.

It was the early 2000s. Ron was sitting in an executive boardroom at McDonald’s headquarters outside Chicago. Ten years earlier, he had purchased the St. Louis Bread Company and renamed it Panera.

On the other side of the table were members of McDonald’s … continue reading

1: In 2017, Panera Bread founder Ron Shaich sold the company for $7.5 billion, one of the largest deals in restaurant history.

What does Ron believe is the “the singular element” that created this enormous amount of value?

The “Concept Essence” document that he and his team created twenty-one years earlier.

What exactly is a Concept Essence? 

It “isn’t a business plan,” Ron writes in his book … continue reading

1: “Don’t make a decision until you need to,” Panera Bread founder Ron Shaich writes in his book Know What Matters.

“That might sound obvious,” Ron notes, “but so many companies leap to promising dramatic growth and then trap themselves under the weight of the expectations they’ve created.”

Thinking back on the early days of Panera, Ron recalls: “We knew we were ready to grow, and we had an … continue reading