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Article: AU BON PAIN AU BON BONANZA!
- Article from:
- The Boston Globe (Boston, MA)
- Article date:
- March 14, 1989
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright (null) The Boston Globe. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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If one were to pitch an idea like Au Bon Pain, the
Boston-based bakery cafe chain, to a hard-headed capitalist who had
never heard of the place, he would probably scoff.
A marble- and brass-clad fast-food restaurant with an
unpronounceable name? Croissants, muffins, sandwiches, espresso and
soup made by people in black berets? Never work, he'd say. Too
precious, too yuppie, too complicated, too eccentric.
Yet Au Bon Pain works. It works so well, in fact, that in the
last eight years "the French bakery cafe" has grown from three
failing local bakeries to a $50 million company with 60 cafes, 20
in Massachusetts and the rest in New York, Washington,
Philadelphia, Minneapolis, Chicago ...