Thursday, July 05, 2012

A Panera Downtown Is a Good Thing

There may be some people out there complaining that Panera will be opening a Fountain Square location. Please stop. This is a good thing for Downtown. Yes, it's another chain restaurant. I try to avoid chain restaurants, but not everyone can. It is just never going to be possible for local resturants to solely serve the public. Chains exist because they can provide meals more cheaply than stand alone resturants, in most cases.   I would prefer there to be few chains, but no use to get ticked off as something that will create jobs and serve a significant number of customers. Panera will provide, hopefully, a consistent product served during consistent hours.  Those hours will hopefully also include evenings and weekends.

Panera beats adding a McDonald's or Burger King.

4 comments:

  1. Couldn't agree with you more, Griff. I once worked part time at a Panera on top of my other job and going to school. The (majority) customers were awful, mainly snobs who thought they were really something special for eating "above" regular fast food - then again, I worked in Kenwood. The food at Panera is actually pretty good and pretty fresh and for downtown to be vibrant it needs a good mix of local and chain restaurants.

    Where exactly will Panera be going?

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  2. They're going into the space at the corner of 6th & Vine on the Fountain Square side. Its definitely an improvement over the Arby's that used to be there!

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  3. Does this mean you're now okay with an ESPN Zone on the Banks? :-)

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  4. "Panera beats adding a McDonald's or Burger King." Really, how?

    Why is one chain more palatable than another? Oh, wait. I know why. Silly me. It's the same reason why Mitt Romney's presidential ads depict a beautiful fiction that our population is solely made up of upper middle class white people. You see, Panera sells everything you're familiar with...but at a higher price-point...plus there's WI-FI! Ohhh-lah-lah!

    It boggles my mind that the answer to "revitalizing" an area is essentially pricing-out an entire demographic of people. Don't you see? If we sell $10 sandwiches instead of the usual $4 ones, it benefits the community for EVERYONE!*

    *except for you-know-who...wink-wink! :)

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