ST. LOUIS - Panera Bread Co. has been quietly testing drive-thru and table service at some locations, and the bakery café chain will start expanding those services to more stores this year, Nation??s Restaurant News reports. Panera??s revenue jumped 15.8 percent to reach $495.8 last year.

"We now have table delivery in 132 company bakery-cafés and 214 across our system," said William W. Moreton, Panera president and CEO. "We continue to believe this is the right way to position our concept to deliver the type of customer experience we are striving for."

Table service will help differentiate the café, he said. "We think it??s very consistent with the rest of the Panera experience we??re trying to provide," said Moreton. "You??ll see this evolve and unfold."

The chain also started to explore drive-thrus, with around 50 of the 120 new Panera locations this year to have the added service. "In 2011, 30 of our new bakery-cafés were drive-thru units, bringing our total at the end of 2011 to 119 drive-thrus," he said. Another 25 units will be retrofitted with drive-thrus.

In addition to changes in service, Panera also has added new menu items, such as a Mediterranean egg white breakfast, which has "been performing well," said Moreton. Last year, hot breakfast sandwiches saw a 15% bump in sales.

The chain plans to up its marketing expenditures in 2012. "We continue to be early-on in our advertising journey and spend relatively less money on advertising than most of our national competitors," he said.