What fast-casual chain serves soup in bread bowls, plays sad acoustic music and has been lyricized by rappers again and again? None other than our very own Panera Bread.
While the fast-casual chain, locally known as Saint Louis Bread Company, is recognized mostly for its bread-sliced bagels and 500+ calorie salads, it’s also apparently inspired several rappers in the past decade.
Author John Green (The Fault in Our Stars, The Anthropocene Reviewed) recently pointed out the phenomenon in a video on his YouTube channel. Green questioned why rappers including Redman, Rick Ross, Lil Yachty, Yung Gravy and more name-drop Panera — even if it doesn't rhyme.
Take Yung Gracy’s “Mrs. Worldwide”: “Pull up to Panera just to play a lil’ footsie / Ahoy, chips and cookies.” And Macklemore mentioned Panera in “Grime,” a soulful reflection on his rise to stardom. He rapped: “I was studyin’ the Carter one right after ’03 / Marinara, brick oven on the terrace, with the goat cheese / You flatbread from Panera, don’t approach me.”
“Is Panera paying rappers to name drop Panera?” Green asked. (We had the same question for Panera, but it refused to answer our emails, womp womp.) “But I don’t think it’s that. I think that the word Panera is just inherently melodic.”
We reached out to some St. Louis rappers for their thoughts. Kosta Longmire says Panera could symbolize money (bread = cash). Local rappers might mention the company as an homage to their hometown.
“Panera is STL oriented,” he says. “Just a clever line and representation of where we’re from. I’ve used it before.”
Rappers often rap about their struggles, such as money, for which Panera is a metaphor, Eric Donté says.
“Rappers always rap about coming up out of the mud and growing up from the struggle,” Donté says. “I remember way back when, when I was really struggling and I was homeless, Panera always had free Wi-Fi. You’d see a lot of artists in Panera using their free Wi-Fi to do stuff.”
Then there's rappers who’ve made it big, like Rockie Fresh and Rick Ross, who correlated Panera with luxury cars and money, like in their 2013 track “Panera Bread.”
Rapped Rockie Fresh in one verse: “Every day I’m goin’ hard and I’m stayin’ prepared / got that broccoli cheddar soup with that Panera bread.”
Translation: He works hard and has a lot of money as a result.
Multiple rappers have also used Panera to rhyme with “panamera,” a model of Porsche.
“New whip doin’ doughnuts, J Dilla,” rapped Lil Yachty in “Atlanta House Freestyle,” a 2019 collaboration with Chance the Rapper. “Went to Panera in a Panamera.”
Then there’s the lyrics the average Porsche-less folks can relate more to. In “Pack a Lunch,” a song by Prof, Redman jumps in for a verse to rap, “Black bandana tiltin’ like Santana / I’m a cheap fuck, I wine and dine at Panera.”
We couldn’t help but notice the sheer lack of songs that reference Panera using its real name, Saint Louis Bread Company. We’d try to write our own, but we’ll leave that to the pros.
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