Panera's Pay-What-You-Want Restaurant Is A Success

[InVerse]

Apparently Panera opened a non-profit pay-what-you-want bakery in my state and it's actually succeeding so well that they're opening more of them.

In short, the menu has suggested prices but you're allowed to pay whatever you want, including $0. So far, 70% of people have paid the suggested price while 15% have paid more (including $20 for a cup of coffee) and 15% have paid less or nothing. Pretty fucking awesome idea and I could see myself paying both less and more at various points in my life.

Note to the RIAA: Go fuck yourselves.

 

[The 9th Sage]

Yeah, I like that idea. Would be cool if they opened some here.

 

[pipes]

LOL that wouldn't work here. The bums would think its a mission. Hell, I would go there to get free food.

 

[InVerse]

Hell, I would go there to get free food.

And that's why you need to have your head blown off, for the good of the world.

 

[pipes]

Someone gives me the choice of free food and I would take it. This is good enough to have my head blown off?

 

[InVerse]

Someone gives me the choice of free food and I would take it. This is good enough to have my head blown off?

You're taking free food away from people who actually need it.

 

[pipes]

You're taking free food away from people who actually need it.

Nah. After a little research reading why a company would do this, I don't think it matters. It's nothing but an experiment. To create some kind of tax evasion scheme? I don't know. There doesn't seem to be a real motive behind it other then it's just an "experiment" that they want to do with all of their locations, but it's not like I am going to the food bank and taking boxes from there. I have been there a few times, but only when I need it (I'm dirt poor living off 1k a month while supporting my brother). They give you huge boxes to last you a few days that was donated by people. This is that vs. some company looking at charts and graphs and a bowl of soup and a sandwich. So I don't care.

 

[The 9th Sage]

....now I'm all hungry.

 

[InVerse]

Nah. After a little research reading why a company would do this, I don't think it matters. It's nothing but an experiment. To create some kind of tax evasion scheme? I don't know. There doesn't seem to be a real motive behind it other then it's just an "experiment" that they want to do with all of their locations, but it's not like I am going to the food bank and taking boxes from there. I have been there a few times, but only when I need it (I'm dirt poor living off 1k a month while supporting my brother). They give you huge boxes to last you a few days that was donated by people. This is that vs. some company looking at charts and graphs and a bowl of soup and a sandwich. So I don't care.

It's an experiment because they were afraid it wouldn't work. It turns out that it did work, because a majority of people surprisingly aren't assholes. "Tax evasion scheme"? It's a non-profit organization, there are no taxes to be evaded. It's a separate entity from the normal Panera bakeries, so the company can't just pour money into the store to get out of paying taxes. Besides, there are enough ways for a company to get out of paying taxes to need to devise something like this. Just look at how Exxon paid exactly $0 to the US government in taxes this year.

Stealing is stealing regardless of how you do it. If too many people take food that they can afford to pay for or don't need, the experiment will fail and the people who legitimately need the food lose out.

It must be nice to live in an area with a food pantry. The closest one to here is about 100 miles away. There is a local church that tries to help people out but they've been suffering from a lack of donations and I heard that they've had to shut down their service to only one day a week. The only other thing hungry people have around here is Angel Food Ministries which allows you to buy a big box of crappy food for cheap price.

I know what it's like to go hungry. In 2001, I ended up in the hospital after losing 40lbs in about 30 days because I was only able to spend $5/week on food.

 

[Burzy]

and some people are so sad they have to turn every single topic into a fuckin argument and convict their character over hypothetical situations. If your aim is as good as your mind is stable, i say fire away , Pipe's will live to be 100

 

[Deleted member 48]

I know what it's like to go hungry. In 2001, I ended up in the hospital after losing 40lbs in about 30 days because I was only able to spend $5/week on food.

I had $1,010 when I moved to China in 2005. My airline ticket cost $700. The rent was $300. After I got inside the apartment, the people from downstairs came up and said it would be $10 if I wanted to keep the pots and pans, otherwise they would walk out with them and I wouldn't be able to boil drinking water.

I spent the next 3 weeks living on water. Food came only when coworkers or friends wanted to eat out and treat people, so I got to eat around once every 3–4 days. I didn't end up in the hospital because I couldn't afford the only one that would take foreigners at that time.

The long term effects of living like this left me constantly ill for the next 8 months even after I started to have money again. I actually managed to save money even though I was earning $340 per month in Beijing (low by the standards of anyone other than migrant workers who sleep on the job site).

If there had been a place giving out free bread, I'd have taken it. And when I got my first paycheck, I'd have gone again and paid 50 percent for bread. And when I got my second paycheck, I'd have gone back and paid 90 percent.

And that's all I would have paid from then on because Panera's bread is not fucking worth what it asks.