What is a Panera Cares™ Cafe? It’s a socialist experiment where patrons pay what they want for food. “A massive failure” is also an acceptable answer.

A Panera Bread cafe decided to test the idea of customers “paying their fair share.” It was an eight-year mistake. Feast your eyes on the glorious result:

Panera founder and Executive Chairman Ron Shaich told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that the St. Louis Bread Co. Cares Community Cafe in Clayton, Missouri, is imminently due to close because it was on a month-to-month lease and the store would have required a big investment.

‘The nature of the economics did not make sense,’ Shaich said.

The idea for the Clayton cafe was to encourage people who could afford to pay the suggested price or more to do so, in effect subsidizing those who were more financially stretched.

‘We loved it, it worked well, it proved that the idea would work,’ Shaich said.

Yeah, it worked well. They’re closing up shop because the economics didn’t make sense. But it worked well.

Also there’s this little tidbit:

Shaich stepped down as CEO of Panera on 1 January.

Oopsie. I suppose it would have been truer to socialism’s nature had Panera forced richer customers to pay $200 per loaf of bread (see Socialist Utopia: Venezuela Inflation Hits 248 Percent…). Looks like paying your fair share isn’t enough to keep the lights on or the fridges running. But hey, who doesn’t love a stale bread line? Mold is just extra protein. That’s the delicious taste of collectivist compassion.

…At least they tried.

Progressives, time to address the malnourished elephant in the room. I hope you’re sitting on your government-subsidized chair, because the following may come as a shock: socialism doesn’t work. Socialism destroyed Venezuela. Socialism was enough to sink the Bernie-loving brainchild of an already successful company. See what I’m getting at here?

Ah well. Better luck next time!

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