Let them eat cake…or, free sandwiches.
I’m a regular at a Panera Bread restaurant in Portland. It’s next door to Trader Joe’s and I’ve learned that a bowl of soup in the cafe saves me a bundle when grocery shopping.
Earlier this year the eatery turned into Panera Cares Cafe, a not-for-profit; it’s one of three and the first in Oregon. It works like this: You order your food at the counter as usual, then the staff person tells you what it costs according to the menu. You decide what to pay. My lunch yesterday was $6 and change. I gave them $8.
Photo from USC
This place has always done a good business. It has fresh, tasty food, free wireless, and is steps away from bus stops and the MAX train. (It’s neighbor Trader Joe’s is one of the busiest for miles, and I’m not the only one doing preventative pre-shopping eating at Panera.)
After a couple of months of the not-for-profit model, the clientele is different. My unscientific tally was about 6:1, meaning six quite down-at-the-heels folk to one working stuff who looked like she or he had a home, paycheck, etc. I watched for half an hour and it seemed to me that more people paid the total tab than not.
The waitstaff politely asked that carts and bags were not brought inside. The restroom key was in use the entire time I was there. There were fewer people yapping audibly into cell phones or taking up entire tables as they created Excel spreadsheets on their laptops.
Another change: When someone lives outside most of the time here, carrying belongings in a cart or backpack, they often also carry a scent of mildew. Put 10 people with that circumstance into a small dining area, and it’s significant. No unfair stereotyping here, folks. Yes, a lot of homeless or mostly-homeless people in Portland are able, through exhausting amounts of planning and waiting in lines outside shelters, to keep clean clothes on their backs. But that’s very difficult to do–and stepping inside the reading rooms of the downtown public library here makes clear how many people are not able to do so.
And like the libraries, the Panera approach is significant for more than its free or sliding scale status. Before it changed from a for-profit business to nonprofit, the people who make up the 6 in the 6:1 ratio were politely discouraged from pulling up a chair in Panera, even of they had cash in hand.
The atmosphere in Panera reflected these realities when I was there the other day. It didn’t keep me out or make me uncomfortable. But I noticed some other diners retreating once they got the lay of the land.
I’m delighted that a corporation is picking up some of the slack when it comes to feeding people of limited means. The church food programs and missions in our cities and towns can’t cover all the needs, and those groups are the ones who have long filled the many holes in the government safety net.
I’m going to watch with interest to see how this model works. I hope it’s a hit that gets replicated, and I’m worried it won’t be.
–Kimberly Marlowe Hartnett
