Ken Rosenthal, who opened a bakery coffee shop in the Saint Louis area, with his sourdough bread as his star, and built it in a small chain that will become a panera bread, died on February 14 at his home in Scottsdale, Ariz. It was 81.
His wife, Linda Rosenthal said the cause was Alzheimer’s disease.
Mr Rosenthal had no interest in organizing a retail bakery in the mid -1980s, when he and his wife had a women’s clothing store called Kenlyn’s in Chesterfield, Mo., a suburb of St. Louis.
“I was a man who never went to a kitchen, much less understandable how to bake anything,” he told St. Louis Post-Dispatch in 1997.
But his brother, Don, told him about a business that should consider entering: a Bakery Sourdough Cafe like Le Boulanger, who had visited San Francisco. After resisting for months, Mr. Rosenthal also visited the bakery.
Impressed by what he saw, he asked owner Roger Brunello to teach him the secrets of Sourdough. During the following year, he trained with Mr. Brunello and in October 1987 he opened the first Outlet Company Saint Louis Bread in Kirkwood, a suburb of St. Louis, with a menu of 10 types of bread (including sourdough in various shapes), a variety of croissants, Danish and muffins and some sandwiches.
“Roger helped him open the store and said,” Roger. Are you sure he knows how to bake? “” Mrs Rosenthal, known as Laya, recalled with a laugh in an interview.
She and her husband took the jump in part because the competition from the biggest clothing stores made their job more difficult.
“We had nothing to lose,” he said. “We played everything.” They sold shortly after the opening of Saint Louis Bread Company, which became locally known as “Bread Co.”
Interview with a local television station six months after the opening, Mr Rosenthal noted that his new business had asked him to wake up daily at 2am.
“You have to change your life, you need to change the things you do. I know people don’t call me after a certain time,” he said. “You have to take naps once in a while. But I liked it.”
He added, “creating sourdough bread, for example, is a slow, tiring process and it is difficult for a large shopping bakery to create this kind of product.”
Kenneth Jay Rosenthal was born on April 11, 1943, at St. Louis, to Herman Rosenthal, who owned a women’s clothing store, and adis (Eckert) Rosenthal, a motif manufacturer. He graduated from the University Gymnasium in Missouri, attended the Community College and followed his father’s path in 1963, making a female clothing seller.
He married Linda Kramer in 1969.
Bought Karstev’s, a women’s clothing store at St. Charles, Mo., in 1970, and later brought a partner, with whom he opened a second Karstev’s in 1975 in Chesterfield. In 1980, he and the partner were separated. His partner took the St. St. Charles and Mr Rosenthal and his wife took the second and changed his name to Kenlyn’s.
Mr. Rosenthal’s bypass from female dresses to baked products proved to be smart. From 1987 to 1993, he and his three associates (who joined him at different times) expanded the first cafe in a chain of 20 stores in Missouri and Atlanta.
After the death of Mr Rosenthal, one of his associates, Doron Berger, told Denver Post: “What we did at the moment at St. Louis, there was no competition. This was part of Ken’s genius, because everyone tried to They talk to him from doing it before he opens the first place, but nevertheless he followed. “
In November 1993, publicly owned Au Bon Pain acquired Saint Louis Bread for $ 24 million. At that time, Au Bon Pain had 172 nationwide coffee bakery and Saint Louis Bread had revenue of $ 14.6 million in $ 10 months before the sale.
“It was the right time for sale,” Mr Rosenthal told post-dispatch. “We had brought the company to a 20 store organization. We needed out of funding and we wanted to be able to make the idea a bigger entity.”
In 1995, owned by Au Bon Pain, there were 59 Bakery Saint Louis Bread cafes. In 1997, when Au Bon Pain changed the company’s name (except for St. Louis) in Panera Bread, he had franchise agreements for more than 200 stores.
In 1998, Au Bon Pain agreed to sell his restaurants and change his corporate name to Panera Bread.
In 2017, Panera was sold to Jab Holding, a private European company, for $ 7.5 billion, over 300 times what Mr Rosenthal had paid. Later that year, Jab bought pain in Au Bon, reuniting him with Panera.
Panera currently has 2,230 restaurants in the United States, making the second largest chain in the rapid-casual restaurants (after the Chipotle Mexican Grill), according to Restaurant Business magazine.
Mr. Rosenthal remained with pain in the Au Bon for a while, and then became a Panera franchisee in 1997. His company, bread of the world, belonged to nearly 100 panera restaurants in Ohio and Colorado, where he moved in 2002. He has lived full -time employment At Scottsdale from 2019, one year after the last sale of his restaurant breads world a year ago.
“To have sold the company and return as a franchisee-he loved him,” said Craig Flom, his groom and the long-term breads of the world executive.
In addition to his wife and his brother, Mr. Rosenthal survives two daughters, Carly Flom and Kari Rosenthal. Two sons, Eric and Scott. and 13 grandchildren.
Mr. Rosenthal explained his functional style when he spoke with Post-Dispatch in 1997.
“I am always better when I am completely challenged,” he said. “When things get routine with me. I guess I’m losing a little interest.
“I’m not a big operator. I am a better pioneer than I am anything else. ”
