Tuesday April 22, 11:38 am ET ST. LOUIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 22, 2003--Panera Bread (Nasdaq:PNRA - News), the nation's bread leader, has received a series of top rankings in the nation's two most comprehensive and prestigious restaurant surveys. First, Panera earned a top spot in the esteemed "Choice in Chains" awards. Sponsored by Restaurants and Institutions magazine, the awards have been the customer-satisfaction benchmark in the restaurant industry for the past 23 years. The first-place award in the sandwich/bakery category recognized Panera Bread for high consumer rankings in seven key areas, including: food quality, menu variety, value, service, atmosphere, cleanliness and convenience. Panera Bread won the category award for a second, consecutive year. Panera also received the number one ranking for food quality among all 95 competitors included in the "Choice in Chains" survey. Additionally, Panera was honored with the highest overall ranking for any fast-casual restaurant in the nation. Furthermore, as cited in Nation's Restaurant News, Panera Bread was placed in the number one spot out of 118 competitors in a national customer satisfaction survey of more than 71,000 consumers. The comprehensive survey also credits Panera Bread for setting a new standard in dining, noting that fast-casual chains continue to raise expectations for customer service industry-wide and dominate satisfaction ratings. Panera Bread is widely recognized for driving the nationwide trend for specialty breads. "More than 10 years ago, we first introduced consumers to a menu built on great bread and quality food, an engaging environment and people who care about delivering great service," said Ron Shaich, chairman and chief executive officer of Panera Bread. "With so many restaurant concepts just now recognizing the satisfaction bread can give, it is rewarding to see that Panera is appreciated by consumers and confirmed by these comprehensive surveys," he said. Consumer response to Panera Bread has been tremendous: the company, which operates bakery-cafes in 32 states, recently opened its 500th bakery-cafe location offering soups, salads and sandwiches in addition to 15 varieties of freshly baked bread. It is the first and only bakery-cafe to provide true, handcrafted artisan bread on a national scale. The company classically trains its bakers in artisan techniques and bakes loaves fresh every day on stone-deck ovens. Unlike competitors, Panera never uses frozen dough in its artisan bakery-cafes. "We thank our bakers, associates, and franchise partners for doing such a wonderful job in sharing our passion for great bread with their communities. Their dedication has earned these awards," Shaich said. Contact: Patrick Davis Communications, St. Louis Kristin Dormeyer, 314/436-9333, ext 21 jkdormeyer@patrickdavis.com
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