Gilmore Girls’ Matt Czuchry and Jared Padalecki Star in Panera Campaign (Exclusive)

To launch its fall menu of comfort foods, Panera tapped two of the stars of one of TV’s coziest shows.

Jared Padalecki and Matt Czuchry, who both played Rory’s boyfriends on Gilmore Girls, team up in a new campaign for the brand.

In the playful ad, they highlight the personalities of Panera’s soups, which seem to mirror the salient qualities of Rory’s three suitors.

Like Padelecki’s Dean Forester, whom Rory dates in high school, Fireside Chili is “the reliable one” that “tastes like home.” Autumn Squash Soup is “something more sophisticated,” similar to Czuchry’s wealthy Logan Huntzberger. And Black Bean Soup’s characterization as the “brooding, mysterious” favorite evokes Milo Ventimiglia’s Jess Mariano.

Czuchry tells PEOPLE the restaurant chain and the beloved series each tap into the Danish concept of hygge.

“I love that feeling, that essence of hygge, that is a feeling of this coziness, and contentment, and warmth, and togetherness,” says the actor. “And it also goes into kind of a lifestyle with blankets, and candles and great home-cooked meals.”

He adds that Gilmore Girls, which turns 25 next month, “is that warm cozy blanket for people still after all these years.”

Czuchry says it was “really easy and comfortable” to collaborate with Padalecki on the campaign.

“I’ve seen him over the years and always loved his energy and his kindness, and that’s how it was on set for us as well,” he says.

Czuchry says fans still enjoy debating their favorite boyfriend for Alexis Bledel’s character “because they love Rory so much.”

“It’s Gilmore Girls,” he says. “It’s about that mother and daughter relationship and what they go through in their lives, and so they want the best for Rory. And people have very strong opinions on who that should be.”

The actor says his personal ranking of Rory’s beaus “really depends on where you drop in the story.”

His own character dated Rory while they were students at Yale, but she ultimately turned down his marriage proposal in the penultimate episode of the original series. In its 2016 revival Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life, Rory continued to see Logan, while he was engaged to a French heiress named Odette.

“Perhaps if Logan had ended up marrying Odette and was with Odette for several years, but then realized that, okay, I’m doing what I always did before and doing what was expected of me because of my family, but the love of my life is Rory and I’m going to go back and chase that again, I think he would want to try again with her, even though she said no the first time,” he says. 

Then I could see that relationship working at the end of where we left the original show,” he continues. “Of course, Logan proposed, she said no. And I think that was probably the right choice for Rory because it just wasn’t the right time. And then if you go back to when we did the revival, again, the timing wasn’t right for them.”

Czuchry says fans approach him to say they’re team Logan “very often.”

“In the run of the show, people would come up and have their passionate opinions on whether they felt Logan was right for Rory or not,” he recalls. “But now that there’s been some separation from the show that it’s been completed, now it’s more of just, ‘Hey, we’re team Logan.’”

“Now it’s more about just, ‘Hey, I love that show. That show is so important to me. Thank you. I watch it with my mom, we watch it every fall, or it was an important part of me growing up,’” he adds.

Czuchry said his favorite quality about Logan was his support for Rory’s dream of becoming a journalist.

“I felt he was trying to push her to challenge herself to, ‘If you want to be a writer, go for that.’ Go for your best life. And I just loved how he pushed her to do that,” he says. “And that was something that was in the very first audition before I got the job, that was my audition essentially.”

Having already watched the show, he says he “really connected to that.” 

“This character was different for Rory, just pushing her to be her best, to go for her dreams, to open up more. And I think that that was the best of who Logan was,” he says.

A quarter of a century after its premiere on Oct. 5, 2000, Czuchry says he’s seen “how much love there’s been for the show” through fan events and media coverage.

“The show connected to people when it first came out 25 years ago, and new audiences are still appreciating it today. And there’s kids named Logan and tattoos about the Life and Death Brigade,” he says referring to Logan’s secret society at Yale.

He adds, “That’s such a beautiful thing in terms of what Gilmore Girls has done.”