Probably because Greg Flynn, who operates 24 of the bakery cafes in California, is a longtime friend of Gov. Gavin Newsom.
The deeper lesson is that giving the government more power to set wages (or regulate other aspects of the economy) creates the conditions for exactly this sort of thing to happen…
And the more the government does that, the more opportunities there will be for officials to reward their friends and punish their enemies.
https://reason.com/2024/02/28/why-is-panera-exempted-from-californias-new-minimum-wage-law/