Au Bon Pain

Au Bon Pain is a bakery-café chain that serves breakfast, lunch, and snacks in a fast-casual setting. The menu centers on soups, salads, sandwiches, fresh baked goods, and coffee, with an emphasis on speed and convenience in busy environments. The brand has a European bakery feel but is built for high-traffic U.S. locations like office buildings, transit hubs, colleges, hospitals, and urban centers where people are on the move.

The company started in 1978 when Louis Kane opened the first Au Bon Pain in Boston’s Faneuil Hall Marketplace. Over the following decades, it expanded into major cities, often anchoring in dense office and commuter areas. The brand later became the predecessor to Panera Bread before going through several ownership changes. A notable milestone came in 2017 when Panera, then owned by JAB Holding, brought Au Bon Pain back under its umbrella to complement its own café portfolio.

Today, Au Bon Pain operates under Ampex Brands, a multi-brand restaurant operator that acquired the chain in 2021. Under this ownership, the strategy has become more focused and selective. Rather than pursuing broad national expansion, the brand is concentrating on refranchising existing locations, updating key sites, and opening new cafés in nontraditional venues. Growth is centered on airports, colleges, hospitals, medical centers, and dense employment districts, especially in the Northeast and other urban cores.

As of March 2024, Au Bon Pain has about 120 locations across the United States. New units are typically developed in partnership with institutional landlords or experienced multi-unit operators who can support strong morning and lunch traffic. The cafés are designed to fit compact, inline spaces and lobby environments where seating is limited and throughput is important. This makes the brand a practical option for mixed-use projects, institutional campuses, and high-traffic urban or transit-adjacent sites that need a recognizable daytime food-and-beverage presence.