By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
The new Panera Bread cafe at 1540 E. Wooster in Bowling Green had a line waiting for it to open its doors for business Wednesday.
Garry Hiser, area operating partner, said the cafe drew business with a year-long two-for-one coupon giveaway to the first 100 customers, as well as other deals throughout the day.
The newly built cafe replaces the eatery that was located in the 100 block of South Main Street in downtown Bowling Green. That cafe had opened in 2001.
The new location enables the fast casual restaurant to add a drive-through lane. And everything in front of the house has been updated. That includes the addition of a self-service kiosks. That will enable customers to store payment and customer loyalty information, and not have to wait in line to grab their usual order or a cup of coffee and be on their way.
Not that that the cafe will be stinting on face-to-face service.
Hiser said that all the staff from the downtown restaurant are going to the new location, and the company is in the process of hiring more than 20 new associates.
The most important upgrades, Hiser said, is in the kitchen and food preparation areas that will increase efficiency. “That’s big.”
It is bittersweet to leave the downtown location, Hiser said, where Panera was a part of the community. (Floyd Craft who owns the downtown building said he’s working with a prospective tenant who would open a new restaurant.)
The new space though was essential to grow and better meet the needs of the customers.
The new Panera Bread cafe makes its East Wooster debut at an inauspicious time. The exits off I-75 are closed, and the campus is quiet over the summer. Panera sits directly across the street from the Stroh Center.
“We recognize this is a slow time of the year,” Hiser said. And the road work puts a damper on traffic.
Still the strategy is always to be prepared for a high volume of business.
So far in the second day of operation, the cafe is performing as projected.
“What is nice about it is it allows us to settle in,” Hiser said. “When August rolls around, we know it’ll be significantly busier.”
