Au Bon Pain

To prepare for its 25th anniversary next year, Boston-based Au Bon Pain wanted to re-energize its sandwich-and-bakery cafés. Sasaki Associates Inc. (Boston) was hired to create an updated design for the 240-store chain that reflects and reinforces its French bakery motif.

The redesigned Au Bon Pains sport a color scheme that incorporates a Provençal blue taken from the Wode flower that grows in France and a yellow derived from the sunflowers that dot the French countryside. The stores feature limestone flagstone flooring, serpentine tables that allow customers to interact and directional lighting designed to create a bright and lively environment.

“The new environment is a bustling, urban marketplace that stimulates the senses through sight, sound, smell and taste,” says Sasaki principal Elizabeth Meek.

The redesigned cafés are also boosting Au Bon Pain's bottom line. Company officials say sales at existing outlets sporting the updated look are up 25 percent from a year earlier.

Client: Au Bon Pain, Boston – Frank Guidara, president, ceo

Design Team: Sasaki Associates Inc., Watertown, Mass. – Elizabeth Meek, principal; Christiana Linera, project manager; Milena Haskovec, Lori Hessamfar, Snejzana Radic, designers; Brian Pearce, graphics designer

Outside Design Consultant: Sladen Feinstein, Boston (lighting)

Suppliers: DesignTex, Boston (fabrics); Monarch Industries, Warren, R.I. (fixturing); Stone Source, Boston (flooring); ISA Intl., Toronto (furniture); Standard Electric, Wilmington, Mass. (lighting); Honan Sign, Winthrop, Mass. (signage); D.L. Couch, Newcastle, Ind. (wallcoverings); DMX Music, Los Angeles (music)

Larry Link, Link Photography, Brooklyn, N.Y.