Panera is bringing back warm bowls, starting at $9.99. | Photo courtesy of Panera
Panera Bread’s ongoing transformation effort ratcheted up on Wednesday with a significant summer menu upgrade.
The fast-casual chain is bringing back bowls.
And that’s not all. There are new-and-improved salads, a line of iced and frozen coffee drinks, and protein-packed frittatas at breakfast that are portable for diners on the go. The upgrades also include the addition of roughly 12 new ingredients, including shrimp, roast pork, roasted sweet potatoes, grilled broccoli, and croissant croutons.
The move comes just two years after Panera streamlined its menu to focus on sandwiches, salads, and soups. At the time, a number of menu categories were cut to focus on efficiency — including bowls.
It was an attempt to focus on strengths after years of battling sinking sales. CEO Paul Carbone, named to the helm last year, saw the brand as suffering a “death by a thousand cuts” in quality. He launched a turnaround plan last year called Panera RISE that included a pledge to improve the menu, as well as the customer experience.
The chain, for example, this year added a Guest Experience Champion position to take care of diner needs in the front of house.
Panera is also testing an overhaul of its loyalty program, and new in-store kiosks, which promise to bring more change for the brand.
Carbone said RISE results so far give him “wild optimism” about where Panera is headed.
But he remains realistic, he said, adding, “The business isn’t where I want it to be today.”
Real turnaround will take time, said Carbone.
“What we’re doing with RISE is the right work,” said Carbone. “I just want to go faster.”
Panera has suffered through several years of turbulence, board reshufflings, management changes, and hundreds of layoffs tied to fresh dough facility closures as the brand shifted to frozen, par-baked loaves made by third-party bakers.
The bread shift was designed to ensure restaurants had enough dough on hand so loaves could be hot out of the oven through the day. But critics saw it as a fundamental misjudgment, given the brand was built on the core promise of fresh bread.
In 2024, Panera’s sales fell more than 5%, according to data from Technomic’s Top 500 restaurant chains.
Last year, however, sales trends improved. Panera sales were down 2.8%, according to Technomic, and appear to be moving in the right direction.
As a private company, Carbone said Panera does not disclose sales results.
With the execution of RISE, Carbone said he’s seeing “green shoots” with the rollout this year of Salad Stuffers, for example, and new Fresca and refresher drinks.
The summer menu upgrade is designed to escalate some of that momentum — and to capture consumers who are increasingly looking for value.
Here’s what’s new:
A Market Bowl category includes three warm bowls, with a starting price point of $9.99 (prices may vary).
- The Sesame Ginger Chicken bowl ($11.99) includes diced chicken on a bed of seasoned brown rice and arugula, topped with edamame, cucumber, cilantro, shredded red cabbage, and grilled broccoli. It’s finished with candied black pepper almonds with a side of sesame ginger dressing. Panera notes that it has 38 grams of protein.
- Carnitas Elote ($13.19) features slow-roasted pork on seasoned brown rice with arugula, roasted corn, feta, avocado, and pickled red onions. It’s finished with cilantro, blue corn tortilla strips, Greek yogurt, and a side of creamy garden herb dressing (44 grams of protein).
- All-In Veggie ($9.99) on seasoned brown rice with arugula includes sweet potatoes, feta, cucumber, grape tomatoes, roasted corn, and pickled red onion with tortilla strips and a smoky lemon vinaigrette.
Carbone noted that customers loved Panera’s bowls in the past. But at the time they were seen as complex to make and they slowed service.
“Guests told us during our RISE research that, ‘Yes, you should be in the bowl business, and we want bowls from you,’” he said, noting that the new bowls are easier to execute in the back of house.
The move comes at a time when fast-casual competitors, like Sweetgreen, have been painted as expensive “slop bowl” purveyors. Sweetgreen, in fact, this year rolled out new wrap sandwiches to diversify its menu and move beyond bowls.
Carbone argued that Panera’s bowls are different from what can be found across the fast-casual landscape, in terms of flavor and leveled-up ingredients. But also because of the $9.99 starting price, which is generally below similar offerings at Sweetgreen.
Panera also allows guests to choose a half portion, which brings the price down to $8.59 for the Sesame Ginger Chicken bowl, for example, or $9.49 for the Carnitas bowl.
The three new salads, likewise, appear to take advantage of the new ingredients in the pantry across a number of dishes.
The Ultimate Garden Steak ($13.49 whole/$9.59 half) puts marinated sliced steak on mixed greens with arugula, alongside sweet potatoes, grilled broccoli, and roasted corn. It’s topped with grape tomatoes, pickled red onion, fresh cilantro, and crispy onions with a side of creamy garden herb dressing (33 grams of protein for a whole).
The Shrimply Baja ($12.99/$9.39) features shrimp and feta on romaine layered with red cabbage, avocado, grape tomatoes, fresh cilantro, roasted pumpkin seeds, tortilla strips, and both a drizzle of lemon vinaigrette and a side of garden herb dressing (27 grams of protein).
The Farmhouse Crunch ($9.99/ $6.99) salad includes the sweet potatoes, shaved parmesan, cucumbers, grape tomatoes, avocado, pumpkin seeds, candied black pepper almonds, and the farmhouse ranch dressing (18 grams of protein).
Carbone noted the new menu has some smaller improvements, like cutting grape tomatoes in half so guests don’t have to chase them around the bowl with a fork.
These are little things, he admits. But they add up.
“Is a croissant crouton going to save us?” he posed. “No. But when they eat that, what I want people to say is, ‘Oh, this is different. Like, wow, this crouton is different.’”
Panera’s new Frittatas come in two variations. | Photo courtesy of Panera
At breakfast, Panera is tapping the popularity of its broccoli-cheddar soup with the new crust-less Broccoli Cheddar Frittata. There’s also a five cheese and bacon variation, and both are value positioned at a recommended $5.79.
Carbone described the frittatas as “our version of an Egg Bite (made popular by Starbucks) but lifted up,” he said. “It’s like our souffle, but without a crust.”
Like many restaurant chains today, Panera is also leaning into beverages. It’s a category the chain once pioneered, with its subscription-based Unlimited Sip Club, launched in 2022.
During the streamlining effort in 2024, a number of beverages were removed from the menu, Carbone said. “This is us reintroducing beverages.”
The new cold coffees include Café Blended Iced Coffees in three flavors: Snickerdoodle, Hazelnut Mocha, and Rocky Road. Those flavors are also available as a blended Frozen Java.
Added to the refresher lineup launched earlier this year is a caffeinated Island Mango Energy Refresher, blending mango, guava, and pineapple flavors with dragonfruit pieces.
Those specialty coffees are made to order and not available as part of Panera’s Sip Club subscription. But one new offering that is available through Sip Club is a Blackberry Hibiscus Herbal Iced Tea.
The new menu includes iced and frozen coffees. | Photo courtesy of Panera
Carbone said the investments in service are also paying off.
In February, the chain’s roughly 1,100 company-owned cafes added a new Guest Experience Champion position, five hours per day, every day of the week.
It’s a front-of-house position, said Carbone. The champion is tasked with greeting guests, helping with kiosks, walking around the dining room to make sure tables are bussed, and interacting with guests.
In the units that have champions, Panera’s guest experience metrics are up significantly for dine-in channels, specifically during the hours that champions are in play (typically 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.).
In fact, the program has been so successful, about half to 60% of the chain’s franchise operators have already added champions, Carbone said.
These big initiatives have been tested over the past year, said Carbone, and there’s more to come.
The company is currently testing a switch of its loyalty program from a “surprise and delight” format — which Carbone said is no longer surprising or delighting anyone — to a points-based system, now far more common across the industry.
Panera is also testing new kiosks, which are bigger, more reliable, and host software that integrates payment and loyalty.
If rolled out, the new system would require an equipment upgrade. But Carbone said the company has full buy-in from franchisees.
“Here’s what’s great about our franchisees,” he said. “They’re big, they’re multi-unit, they’re sophisticated, and they got it. They’ve been there, and they lived through that death by one thousand cuts. So our franchisees are behind RISE.”
Fundamentally, the true measure of RISE will be whether it drives more transactions, said Carbone. That leads to higher sales, which leads to higher profits, and, ultimately, expansion.
Since Panera was acquired by the Luxembourg-based conglomerate JAB in 2017, the chain has grown net units at a compounded rate of about 1%. The chain had 2,254 units as of early June.
Despite some closures tied to the bankruptcy of a franchisee last year, Panera is not shrinking, said Carbone.
“Are we happy with 1%? No. A growing brand should open units faster than that,” he said. “It is expanding. It’s just not expanding at the velocity I would like, and my team would like.”
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