NEW RESTAURANT: Dayton gets its 1st Au Bon Pain bakery-café today

The Dayton area gets its first taste today of the national bakery-café chain Au Bon Pain.

The Boston-based chain’s first Dayton-area location is scheduled to open this morning in the University of Dayton’s Kennedy Union. Like three other new restaurants that opened inside the student union last week, Au Bon Pain is fully open to the public.

LAST WEEK: 3 new restaurants open on UD’s campus today

“With 8,700 students plus faculty and staff, it is a very attractive market,” Au Bon Pain Chief Development Officer Ed McGraw told this news outlet in February. “It’s a great institution, with long traditions. We’re looking forward to becoming the place to meet on campus.”

UD officials say the new Au Bon Pain will offer “breakfast with fresh-baked pastries, gourmet coffee and hot items. Pastries, breads and cookies are baked fresh daily on-site. Lunch options include soup, sandwiches, mac & cheese and made-to-order salads.”

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Au Bon Pain’s McGraw said the chain would look for other potential locations in the Dayton region, focusing on hospitals and perhaps other local college campuses. Its closest locations are in Christ Hospital in Cincinnati and in the Ohio State University Medical Center in Columbus.

However, Paula Doyle, senior vice president of marketing for Au Bon Pain, told this news outlet via email Sunday night that, “We haven’t found any additional locations in Dayton as of this time.”

RELATED: UD to spend $7M to upgrade dining at Kennedy Union (April 2016)

Founded in 1978, Au Bon Pain focuses on opening cafes inside universities, transportation centers, malls, museums and urban office buildings. The chain’s menu focuses on sandwiches, breads, pastries, salads, soups and coffee, and includes low-sodium, low-fat, gluten-free, vegan, and vegetarian options.

The new bakery-cafe is one of four new dining options for students, faculty, staff and the public in UD’s student union. Micro-restaurants Spice, Toss and Que opened last week.

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The new restaurants are part of a broader $7 million renovation to the dining areas of Kennedy Union, ensuring that it will offer the university community “expanded food choices, longer hours, hot breakfasts and significantly increased seating,” UD officials announced last year.

LAST WEEK: UD students are eating way better than their counterparts, survey says

This year’s new restaurant choices come just a few weeks after UD’s food-service program was ranked No. 19 in the country among the Princeton Review’s “The Best 382 Colleges” — and it was the only Ohio college or university to make the top 20 list.

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