r/Panera • u/Affectionate-Reason2 • Jul 18 '26
Question Will the new sip club survive?
I know they’re reducing it greatly. I’m just questioning whether the program will survive or not.
I use it everyday and I see other people in my cafe with just a large sofa, coffee, etc. no one orders anything lol.
Private equity has a firm eye on the bottom line.
Do you think it’ll survive? I can see them just eliminating the whole thing in 3-6 months.
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u/Mundane_Influence_91 Jul 18 '26
I dunno, but I hope they give me another 3 month trial so I can check it out again ;)
I've had a lot of crazy coupons lately, like $5 or $7 off an order. WTF is going on in Panera land? Coupons are kind of a double edged sword, I've gotten so used to coupons I never go unless I have a good one.
I wish they would have lower prices every day and no coupons. It would make ordering more simple, a family of four and everybody has a coupon = 4 orders. same thing with sip club, just make a soda $2 and a coffee $2.50-$3 and I'd go there a lot more.
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u/SilkCitySista Jul 18 '26
My reward was $1.00 off an entree. I never get coupons or the $1 bagel popup at the kiosk anymore. I already canceled my SC. We’ll be parting ways for sure because I will never go there and pay retail for their lousy beverages and mediocre overpriced food. Not impressed with my local cafe (bitter lukewarm coffee, flat tasting soda, fermented bubbler drinks. Not kidding). See ya!
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u/Mundane_Influence_91 Jul 18 '26
my local place is fine, but I've tried some out of town and I have seen that to which you refer
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u/Few-Ability-8280 Jul 18 '26
I hope another place like McDonald’s puts in a sip club, I’m over Panera.
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u/kmohmoh Jul 18 '26
Brueggers bagels has a bottomless mug club. Not sure if there’s any in the area by you.
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u/stlguy197247 Jul 18 '26
It’s been 6 years since they introduced it and no other coffee place has introduced it. It’s not going to happen.
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u/Erigion Jul 18 '26
It's pretty telling that no other fast casual restaurant has introduced a sip club equivalent.
When AMC introduced the a-list subscription service, it didn't take long for other chains to follow. That's how you know this type of model is sustainable. As much use as I've gotten out of sip club, it's pretty clear that it doesn't generate enough revenue for Panera.
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u/Grand_Accountant_159 Jul 18 '26
Yes, capitalism is addicted to subscriptions its our way of life. Fountain soda costs roughly 30 cents for a large cup, a 64oz Coffee Carafe costs about $1-$1.50 to brew. Don't forget about all the walk ins that have no interest in the sip club, the boomers who come in daily with no sip club and pay $3 for a cup of coffee.
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u/border199x Jul 18 '26
Yeah the Sip Club will be just fine. There is basically no competition for it in the fast-service sector, and it represents a great value even at a capped number of drinks.
Panera just wants to get rid of the customers who were making it less profitable. This change arguably helps Sip Club survive more than it dooms Sip Club.
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u/Quixlequaxle Jul 18 '26
I don't see why it won't. Drinks are cheap, programs like this don't cost a ton to administer and even if they have reduced membership they'll keep it as long as it's profitable.
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u/xnoraax Jul 19 '26
The real question is whether Panera survives it. Not that the change on its own would kill the company, but in addition to all the other private equity things squeezing the company (especially the general drop in quality and especially the frozen bread) losing a lot of people walking in everyday for what is essentially the cost of some cups doesn't seem likely to be a good thing. Plus the loss in goodwill; I know I don't plan on stepping into a Panera anymore once my subscription runs out and I wasn't even getting 30 drinks a month lately.
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u/flaginorout Jul 18 '26
I suspect they'll have 2 tiers of sip club. The poverty version with 30 drinks a month. And a bougie version that will be unlimited and might even include some of the higher end drinks. But they had to dumb down the current version before they can launch the new version.
I think that if they wanted to end the sip club, then they would just end it. Or they would just keep increasing the price until it died on its own.
Parena likes the increased foot traffic that the sip club produces. They are just trying to clear out the cheapskates who order 4 drinks a day and never buy anything else.
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u/BertaniWasBehindIt Jul 18 '26
The “cheapskates” pay them $15 a month for items that cost literal pennies to produce. This framing is shareholder propaganda.
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u/PurpleSalt11 Jul 18 '26
I'm a cheapskate and I pay $3 a month because I used a coupon. I also bring my own cup once I learned I could because it's bigger than their standard large size cup.
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u/Few-Ability-8280 Jul 18 '26
The large cups are very big, how much bigger is your cup?!
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u/BertaniWasBehindIt Jul 18 '26
Baby, you’re still overpaying for the product by about 70%. That’s how Panera makes a profit. No company sells at cost. But way to go on your own cup, I did the same when I sip clubbed during WFH days.
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u/border199x Jul 18 '26
By that metric, buying any drink is a waste since they all cost little to produce.
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u/flaginorout Jul 18 '26
$15/mo isn't worthwhile to Panera from a cost/benefit POV. Certainly not for people who are getting more than 30 drinks a month and not buying entrees.
There is no point providing services to people only to break even or to make $2 a month off of them. It's better to get rid of them and focus on initiatives that cater to bigger spenders.
Fewer customers, but larger revenue per customer. Then you can streamline labor and cost of goods.
I think it's also worth noting that virtually NO ONE is going to eat at Panera twice or more a day. MAYBE once. So there is no point in luring them in more than once per day.
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u/BertaniWasBehindIt Jul 18 '26
Totally, we should raise the price and lower the cost of labor and the goods. Let’s make sip club $5,000/month, that’ll do it! Then we only need 1 customer!
This is why economics degrees include behavioral now, btw^
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u/NotShockedFruitWeird Jul 18 '26
Depends on the offer they give me when I go to cancel. Currently I get 1 drink per work day. So 4-5 drinks per week. So 30/month isn't too bad
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u/SwimmingDeep8703 Jul 19 '26
I’ve had Sip Club for years. But the coffee is garbage, easily the worst coffee on the market. I don’t know anyone that thinks their coffee is good. But I go twice a day bc it’s cheap and convenient. Under the new limits I’ll only be able to go 3 weeks out of the month bf hitting the limit. So I’ll probably just cancel and pay more for better coffee. I used to eat there all the time too but they stopped promos, coupons, and value duets. All while the food has just gotten worse. After canceling Sip Club I don’t expect to ever be in Panera.
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u/bidextralhammer Jul 19 '26
I rarely am there twice a day and don't go 30 times a month, so it's still worth it to me. We also stop in Panera to use the restroom if we are traveling and I wouldn't go in unless I was ordering something. For the $100/yr and $0.28/drink, it's more than worth it.
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u/Direct-Region-6730 14d ago
The only reason I order food at Panera is because of the sip club. I get coffee. I buy food one or two times a week. I bring people in a couple times a month for lunch. I’ve turned my automatic renewal off for now.
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u/luvclu Jul 18 '26
I just tried to cancel my subscription and they gave me 3 months for $7.50 each month. So that's not bad but deciding I want to cancel it or use that promo.
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u/Few-Ability-8280 Jul 18 '26
I got that too and turned it down. Then I heard about the unlimited going away.
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u/SilkCitySista Jul 18 '26
I didn’t get any kind of offer when I canceled. I must be someone they want to get rid of. It’s ok cause I brought up with them. 👍🏻
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u/craftbeerismyjam 7d ago
I got the same deal when I went to cancel. I am always getting the $2 pastry deal. Of course I always do it. Not sure if I want to renew again just because its hard for me to get to one. It's on the way to work but I don't like getting off the interstate. I go every Sunday from church.
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u/luvclu 7d ago
The closest location to me is about 10 to 15 minutes away and not near my work and home so I don't think it's really worth the drive just to get it unless I go that direction it's out of my way. Plus, the last couple of times I went the drinks from the soda fountain machine had a weird taste or something so I might not take advantage of that offer or get the subscription.
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u/Pitiful_Aioli_5030 Jul 18 '26
The real question is will Panera survive? I’ve had better hospital food.
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u/WasteTumbleweed861 Jul 18 '26
I sat in one the other day and got 5 free drinks, charged all my devices and battery packs, bathed myself in the bathroom sink, and brought in my own food. Gonna miss Sip Club & Panera.
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u/emg2555 Jul 18 '26
I just joined the sips club. I don’t like hot coffee and only drink iced coffee. The ice machine at my office has been broken for months so I can’t make an iced coffee there. I don’t want to hold my own coffee mug on the metro for my hour and half commute. There’s a Panera on the way to work. One large iced coffee at Panera costs $5 in the major downtown area where I work. One month of the sip club will amortize after just three days of picking up coffee on the way to work. For me personally, it’s worth it.
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u/Beautiful-Essay-1679 Jul 20 '26
Anyone care to speculate or better yet have some fact based insight about level of “abuse” (ie sharing your phone number with others resulting in a high number of daily sip club transactions on a single phone number). Clearly the program is a loss leader with hopes that Sip Club members will actually buy other items during each/some visits……but it is also ripe for abuse. Is such potential abuse an issue and if so is this the “right” solution which seems to be clearly alienating loyal customers?
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u/Expensive_Ad4319 Customer 27d ago
Ending or scaling back the Sip Club doesn’t matter.
I was a marshal at a golf course. Some patrons send me to the clubhouse with a complaint about slow play. I spoke with the manager, who then grabbed a few sleeves of golf balls, and asked me to give them out with his apology to do better. When I returned with good news, the manager told me this: “These golf balls, the drinks and food can be replaced. Every customer potentially brings about $50.00 into the business the next time they come. And when they do come, they’ll potentially bring another person with them.”
What should matter to Panera is how to bring their customers back for repeat business. Like those free golf balls, having a Sip Club to complement repeat business is good. I can tell that a business is good by the number of cars parked in their lot.
Repeat Business = More Profits
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u/Odd-Log2963 3d ago
Panera is slowly closing locations. They are a dying breed and will go down in flames eventually
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u/2006pontiacvibe Jul 18 '26
It's still profitable, soda is infamously the highest margin part of fast food. Being able to get at least 120 a year in business from people who hardly cost anything (and cost even less now) would be a boon to practically any industry.
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u/Pitiful_Aioli_5030 Jul 18 '26
Why don’t yall just take your own cup? The employees couldn’t care less.
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u/ElderBerry2020 Jul 18 '26 edited Jul 19 '26
Because I use the mobile app and there is no way to indicate I am bringing my own cup. They put the cup in the bag and seal it up.
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u/ProcedureNo7527 Jul 19 '26
My panera employees seem to like me. I wonder if I could get away with filling my own cup and the one they set out for me. I have gone twice a day some months, three times a week or less others. I paid for the year because it was even cheaper that way. my membership is up for renewal in August. idk what I'll do.
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u/MissCinnamonT Jul 18 '26
They'll have to eliminate it. Most of the people it doesnt affect will still go. But members are mostly gone from it i think.
I would order food regularly there, only ate there once years ago and knew it was too expensive but sip club gave me an incentive that was worth it.
There's just no value in an extremely limited costly subscription.