Los Angeles, June 19 - Cafe chain Panera Bread Co is doing fine without a dollar menu.
The St. Louis-based sandwich chain stumbled earlier this year under high wheat and fuel costs but again seems poised to be a standout among restaurants scrambling for customers.
It has reworked its menu to focus on popular, high margin items, while fast-food rivals have tried to lure customers with ultra-low prices.
It has quieted overbuilding concerns by trimming expansion plans and focusing only on profitable sites.
Furthermore, the chain has locked in a low price for wheat at a time when food prices are soaring.
"It was a pleasant surprise to us," said Morgan Keegan Research analyst Bob Derrington after Panera this week raised its second-quarter profit forecast and said it had contracted about 95 percent of its wheat requirements for the first half of the year at a price that is about one-third lower than what it paid the year earlier.
Still, Panera remains cautious on the balance of the year due to the high cost of fuel needed to power its fleet of trucks that deliver fresh dough to its stores.
Panera shares are up 35 percent year-to-date and have outperformed the S&P Restaurants Sub-Industry Index by 38 percent, according to Thomson Reuters data.
Risks for Panera and the rest of the restaurant industry loom as high food and fuel prices continue to eat into disposable income.
"People have less money in their pockets," said Darren Tristano, executive vice president of consulting firm Technomic Information Services, which said in a report that in 2007 Panera was the highest grossing chain in the restaurant industry's top-performing fast-casual segment.
Visitors to fast-casual restaurants -- which also include Chipotle Mexican Grill and privately held Panda Express -- order at the counter, dine in relatively upscale surroundings and tip at their discretion.
Menu items typically cost $2 to $4 more than comparable items at fast-food chain, and often they include more expensive ingredients.
Fast-casual restaurants appeal to diners who are "trading down" from casual restaurant chains in a bid to save money. They also cater to fast-food fans who want to "trade up," Technomic said.
Shares in Panera are up 6 percent since Tuesday, when the company raised its second-quarter earnings forecast to 48 cents to 50 cents per share. It had previously called for per-share earnings of 40 cents to 44 cents.
The company attributed the boost to better-than-expected same-store sales growth and margin improvements.
Analysts said Panera moved early in the current economic slowdown to temper growth plans, which may lessen the risk of the kind of overexpansion that has hurt both Starbucks Corp and Krispy Kreme Doughnuts Inc.
The company has raised the hurdles for green-lighting new stores and slowed development this year to about 60 percent to 70 percent of the pace of last year, Morgan Keegan's Derrington said.
The company owns and franchises 1,185 bakery-cafes under the Panera Bread and Saint Louis Bread Co names.
But the high percentage of short interest in the company illustrates long-term doubts about Panera's prospects. Derrington said any rise in Panera's stock price could be amplified if short sellers, who have bet on a stock drop, rush to cover losses.
As of May 27, 26 percent of Panera shares available for trade were short. That compares with 33 percent for Chipotle and 1.4 percent for McDonald's.
Shares closed up 14 cents to $48.25 on the Nasdaq on Thursday, above the $47.58 short squeeze trigger price calculated by Thomas Ronk, chief executive of short-sales data tracking firm Buyins.net.
When the share price of Panera is below $47.58, most people who have short positions in Panera are making money, Ronk said. But when the share price moves above that point, he said, the "shorts" are losing money and could start to cover their bets by buying stock.