Panera Bread resturaunt is opening its 3rd Panera Cares resturaunt. The Panera Cares stores are the same as the regular Panera's with one exception: customers decide how much they want to pay. Panera the for-profit hopes that customers will cumulatively pay more than the menu items are valued and that the surplus created from such overpayments will go to charities.
The first resturaunt was opened in the St. Louis area. The 3rd is going into the Portland, OR area. Oening 2 or 3 more stores is not what I believe is indicative of success although it might be. I can't seem to locate any real information on how this model is really working. And, I have no real evidence that the model should work -- quite the contrary in my opinion.
What it does do though is give lots of positive impressions by the public of Panera. The consumer can believe that Panera is a very generous operation. And maybe it is. But it certainly would help to hear some results like how many people pay more, equal value or less; how much money has been raised for charity.
One other aspect also bothers me about this model. There appears to be an assumption on Panera's part that consumers like the idea of contributing to charity without knowing exactly what specific charity will benefit. There is no promise by Panera that surplus monies will go to one charity or another. In our newly developing "results-focused" world, the specific charity does matter. Just raising money and promising to donate is no longer adequate.
Anyway, this whole scheme doesn't excite me.