Panera Bread is the latest restaurant chain to latch onto a trendy TikTok meme. It has unveiled its “Roman Empire menu,” which is filled with items its customers “just can’t stop thinking about.”
The Roman Empire meme took off on TikTok after a historical reenactor named Gaius Flavius contended that men think about Ancient Rome more often than the women in their lives might think. A wave of male answers to the question “how often do you think about the Roman Empire?” soon followed. The #romanempire hashtag on TikTok has received more than 1.5 billion views in all.
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The meme seems to be running its course on TikTok, but Panera is keeping it in the spotlight. The delivery-only Roman Empire menu features a Caesar salad (naturally) as well as fan-favorite items like mac and cheese and the cinnamon crunch bagel.
As a man who thinks about the Roman Empire quite often, I feel as if Panera’s promotion could be more imaginative. (Colisseum-shaped bread bowls! Gaul-iflower soup! SPQR codes!) Nevertheless, the chain deserves kudos for its quick thinking. By referencing the Roman Empire meme before it fades away completely, Panera is ensuring some word-of-mouth buzz on TikTok.
The results could be significant. Another fast-casual chain, Chipotle, set sales records after it introduced items inspired by TikTok creators. In contrast, the Roman Empire menu is not tied to specific influencers (unless Julius Caesar counts as one). Will that affect its marketability?
Panera is coming off a year in which it did more than $6 billion in sales across 2,121 U.S. locations. Right now, the soup-and-sandwich destination is still in the midst of its imperial era, but as we Historia Civilis viewers have learned, an empire is a hard thing to maintain. Even a dictator for life can end up as the namesake of a salad on a fast-casual chain’s promotional drive-thru menu.
