News

Au Bon Pain launches rebranding initiative

June 7, 2011

In conjunction with the acceleration of its national expansion strategy, 318-unit Au Bon Pain is launching a major café remodeling program. Under this initiative, the company has alreadyremodeled a majority of its cafés in the greater New York City area, one of the chain's largest markets. So far, five locations have been completely revamped while another 13 have undergone a refresh.

The café remodels includea new sandwich bar and fresh tossed salad station, and layouts have been redesigned to improve speed-of-service. That initiative has included the multi-location test of utilizing iPads for the ordering process.

Additionally, café dining rooms have been refurbished and team members are now distinguished by new black uniforms with a sunburst orange apron. The changes to the café have been complemented by menu enhancements, including new, distinctive, bakery items such as cupcakes, enhanced beverage offerings and new soup and sandwich value combos.

“Au Bon Pain has established a strong record of performance, and we continue to innovate and invest in order to improve the quality and convenience of our guest experience,” said Sue Morelli, Au Bon Pain's CEO. “Our recently remodeled New York City cafés have been generating double-digit sales increases, reflecting the enthusiastic response of our guests. Au Bon Pain has been serving guests for 33 years, but this may be the most exciting time in our history as we expand Au Bon Pain into a national brand.”

In the greater New York City area, Au Bon Pain operates more than 30 cafés, including in such marquee Manhattan locations as1251 Avenue of the Americas, 6 Union Square East and 80 Pine Street.

The redesigns have been implemented to enhance the customer experience, Morelli said in April 2011.

Separately, Au Bon Pain has announced the addition of veteran executive chef Stefano Cordova to lead the company’s culinary efforts. Cordova has more than 30 years of food service experience and was most recently vice president and executive chef of Bertucci's Italian Restaurants.

The company also plans on entering new markets this year including Sacramento, Calif., and Nashville.