| Type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Restaurants |
| Founded | 1889 |
| Headquarters | Marcq-en-Barœul, France |
| Key people | Charlemagne Mayot, Founder Francis Holder |
| Products | Fast casual/Bakery-café, including several varieties of bread, such as bagels, loaves, and muffins, cold sandwiches, hot panini, salads, soups, cakes, and pastries |
| Revenue | $300 million USD (2004) [1] |
| Employees | over 300 farmers (December 2006) |
| Website | www.paul.fr |
Paul is a French bakery established in 1889 in the city of Croix by Charlemagne Mayot.[2]
As of August 2011 there are over 436 (326 in France and 127 in other 24 countries) franchised Paul bakery café restaurants in France, Spain, Belgium, United Kingdom, Holland, Czech Republic, Turkey, Greece, Romania, Morocco, Lebanon, Kuwait, Dubai, Bahrain, Japan, Taiwan, Jordan, Switzerland, China and the United States of America. It specializes in serving breads, crêpes, sandwiches, soups, cakes, pastries, coffee, wine, and beer. Groupe Holder is the parent of the Lille-based Paul bakery.[3]
Contents |
Following the death of his father in 1958, Francis Holder took over the family bakery in Lille. With his mother's assistance he expanded the business and when the Nouvelles Galeries opened in 1965, he immediately offered to supply their bread. Under the “Moulin Bleu” Francis Holder provided bread to Auchan and Monoprix from his bakery in Lambersart, and by 1970 he was able to purchase an abandoned industrial site at La Madeleine, in the suburbs of Lille, transforming it into an enormous bakery.
The installation in 1972 of a wood stove at the original Lille bakery proved so popular that, as the Paul chain expanded into French malls in Paris and other major French cities, it was incorporated into the general layout. Apart from a change of livery in 1993 (to the now-signature black), the layout and visual aesthetic of Paul stores has not changed.
First Opening in... [2]
| Year | Location |
|---|---|
| 1985 | Barcelona, Spain |
| 1990 | Japan |
| 2000 | UK |
| 2006 | Palm Beach Gardens, Florida and Miami, Florida (Closed 2010) |
| 2007 | Shanghai |
| 2009 | Seoul, South Korea |
| 2010 | Praha, The Czech Republic |
Items available include pastries, cakes, croissants, sandwiches, soups, quiches, tarts, crepes, eggs, and over 140 types of bread. They also have tea, wine, beer, mineral water, soft drinks and coffee-based drinks.