Au Bon Pain's growth (1970s-1990s)
Ron Shaich and Louis Kane turned a single struggling French bakery in Boston into Au Bon Pain, a chain that grew to hundreds of locations nationwide. Shrestha started his career there as a dishwasher in 1995.
Au Bon Pain became one of America's largest fast-casual bakery chains.
It trained a generation of food-service operators, including Citra's founder.
The chain where Citra's owner began is the same Boston growth model Citra now appears to be following — a small food business scaling into multiple locations.
