Panera Bread

It’s been a while since I’ve written a review and that’s because most of the restaurants I’ve been to have been mediocre. I feel like my reviews should reflect a 1 star or 5 star to really help with the masses. Who cares about the 2, 3 or 4 star reviews. Those can range from the simple mom n pop’s breakfast joint to the local fast food chain. Not worth writing or reading. But the 1 stars are a fun read and also a good piece of advice to avoid at all costs and the 5 stars are the gems you so happen to find which should be revered.
On with the review. Chain restaurants trying to be chic with the healthy options I think are a waste of time. They have the calories written beside each menu item. That’s a great feature except the range is huge!!! Which means you’ve come to the right place to try and make good healthy choices but you can also be a fatty. Very disconcerning. But the biggest issue I had (and will prevent me from coming back) is that they ran out of ingredients!!! «I’ll have the steak and arugula sandwich. Whole, please.» «Oh I’m sorry, we ran out of arugula.» WTF!!! ARE YOU SERIOUS? It’s the other half of the features in this sandwich?! How can you be out? Especially from a stupid chain restaurant? EPIC FAIL. Already disappointed at the counter and no reparations for their failures either. So I had the turkey, bacon blt sandwich. What another fail!
I never had the option to have my bread toasted which would have helped the structural integrity of this sandwich. (And yes, the bread has to hold up during the consumption of the sandwich or else the sandwich fails) and they gave me a pickle spear which was a nice touch but they placed it on the only napkin they provided. Making sure the pickle juice was completely soaked in the napkin I was going yo use to wipe my mouth. BIG EPIC FAIL!!!
My girlfriend’s soup came out kind of warm and turned I’ve cold after the 2^nd spoonful and the bacon that came with our sandwiches were so paper thin you could literally read through it if put up against a glass window. All this for almost $ 30 bucks? RIP OFF!
PANERA BREADS SHOULD SHUT DOWN ALL THEIR LOCATIONS AND STOP RIPPING PEOPLE OFF.
If you’re ever here standing outside panera wondering to walk in or not, turn your head to the left and you’ll see 5 GUYS BURGERS AND FRIES. Go there instead. You won’t be disappointed.
On the plus side, one of the servers working here has a nice booty. Oh nvm, that booty belonged to my gf.

Ordered the bakers dozen with 2 cream cheese tubs brought it home and was missing a bagel. The cream cheeses one expired the day I bought it the other the next day. Have called twice to speak to the manager with no return phone call. Very poor customer service.

Don’t really know what the hype is about. The food is okay. I had the sandwich roasted beef and arugula and French onion soup. Everything seemed cold. Maybe it was the item that I ordered. But the place itself was busy. Seems to be pretty healthy which is probably why the sandwich tasted kind of bland. For healthy eaters yes this is a place to go. I don’t recommend what I ordered and will give it a shot to get something else next time :)

I have been frequenting this Panera location pretty much since it opened. It helps a lot that it is close to home. It is definitely a convenient place to go for a quick lunch or dinner. I like the homey feel of the café/​restaurant, with plenty of booths and tables.
Some of my go-​to menu items include the Napa almond chicken salad sandwich (a refreshing crunchy chicken salad on soft white bread that has almond slivers and grape pieces in it — trust me, it works!), the Fuji apple chicken salad (with crispy apple chips, blue cheese, and a sweet vinaigrette — delicious!), and the barbecue chicken salad (vaguely reminiscent of the Cheesecake Factory barbecue chicken salad).
The staff are pretty friendly, especially the smiley Filipino evening manager, Jun. My hubby and I have lucked out sometimes when they have given out free pastries while we were dining in.
One important tip: if you plan to eat at Panera more than once in your lifetime, make sure you sign up for their Panera card, a free membership that comes with tremendous benefits including a free pastry of your choice for signing up, an annual free pastry for your birthday (that unlike many other places does not need to be redeemed only on your birthday), and various other offers the more times you visit and make purchases at Panera locations. It seems over the last six months, I have received 3 emails from Panera informing me that I was entitled to a free daily coffee (any size) for the months of August, November, and January. For these reasons as well as the consistent service, clean comfortable dining atmosphere, and healthy food choices, I am happy to continue to keep going back to this location.

This Panera’s wifi is shittier than the dial-​up Internet I had in the 90’s. Don’t come here if you’re planning on doing work on your laptop.
The food itself is pretty decent. My fav. is their Thai Chicken Salad. I like the fact that you can get an apple as a side and make other healthy substitutions. I got their Green Passion Power Smoothie once too. It tasted pretty good, but it was pretty sweet so they must’ve dumped a buttload of sugar into it.
At least 50% of ppl come here to do some work, so get your shit together, Panera, and fix your wifi!

I don’t understand how this place was busy both times I came here. Both times the food was completely disappointing and overpriced. Sure, it’s a relatively nice place to eat with comfortable seating but the food does not make up for it. Service was nothing to rave about, it’s like any other fast food counter service.
I paid close to (more than I think) $ 10 for a half salad and half sandwich. The sandwich was tiny and for that price, I thought my roasted turkey & avocado BLT would at least be warm. Not only was it cold, it was made with the cheapest, thinnest white bread and wasn’t even toasted. The turkey was sad and flavourless. The accompanying salad was soggy and average at best. My boyfriend’s mac and cheese was tiny. It tasted alright, like any normal mac and cheese that you can make at home. The bread that came with it was again, cold and hard. With the tiny portions, we weren’t even full afterwards.
I saw a lot of other patrons ordering pastas and pastries. The pastries looked good, but if the food we ordered was any indicator, they’d probably also be cold and not living up to how they look.
You get all you can drink iced tea though, with several flavours. So I guess that’s nice. Probably will never come back though.

I got the You Pick Two deal with the Mediterranean Veggie sandwich and the vegetable pesto soup. The concept of You Pick Two is nice in the sense that you can try two things.
The taste of both of these dishes were pretty good but they were not filling enough to be a decent lunch! :(I was still hungry afterwards (I picked chips as my side.)

Good place for a quick bite to eat in the morning, I found that the atmosphere is good for studying. One of the big downsides is that the internet speed is really slow, so it makes working on your laptop next to impossible.

Decent light classic lunches. Portion is at times smaller than what you’d expect for that price. Overall a good place for a fast and convenient brunch

The highlight of my visit was the Chipotle Chicken Panini I ordered. It tasted really amazing and everything inside the panini worked well together. There was an option to get certain food items on the side such as an apple or chips, I got an apple but it was a sad-​looking apple (maybe because it was completely non-​GMO and organic). Also, I got a Light Roast coffee which tasted alright, nothing unique about it. Basically, you pour yourself your own coffee; Dark Roast, Light Roast, Decaf, Hazelnut are the options and then add in your basic sugar, cream, etc. The Chipotle Chicken Panini was leaning a bit on the hot side and I was thirsty so I ordered the Low-​Fat Mango Smoothie. It tasted pretty fresh but the time it took for it to come seemed oddly long.
Upon ordering, you will receive a table tracker from the cashier which allows someone to bring you your food, a nice addition in my opinion. Wi-​fi is free yet it seemed pretty slow. I came in the morning and it was not as busy as I expected, the ambience was calming enough to enjoy my meal.
Overall, my meal was leaning on the pricey side so I won’t come here often. Although, if I do, I will consider the Chipotle Chicken Panini because that was delicious.
P. S. ask the cashier for a My Panera Card because you’ll be able to get a free pastry upon signing up and various rewards from accumulating purchases.

Salty Salty Salty Salty Salty Salty
Had the Soba Noodle Broth Bowl and it was salty!
Two stars because at least my Mango Smoothie was not salty.
Across the street Whole Food’s prepared section is way better for the same money.

I ordered the famous cobb salad and the smoked turkey sandwich. The cashier was so attentive and was patient with me as it was my first time. The food took awhile to come but it was a pretty packed place. The salad and sandwich were delicious. Cobb salad had a good amount of ingredients. The sandwich was nicely made.
I went back and ordered a smoothie for my date and the second cashier, a much older gentlemen gave me a bit of attitude. I guess he didn’t like the fact that I was ordering only a drink. I took 1 star off for this. He looked like he hated his job so much.
I will return to Panera Bread but maybe not this location. 4 ****

Overpriced healthy hipster food.
I like how their menus contain the calorie content. It’s good and it helps most customers I suppose.
All items in their menu are overpriced. I would only go to Panera Bread if I absolutely have no other place to go to.
There was a time when I would always order the French Baguette as a side, and the cashier would of course say they have them avaialble, but voila! when the food comes, the server would say «oh we ran out of baguettes so I replaced it with white bread». Well that wasn’t the one I ordered now, was it? I hope that the cashiers could tell me right when I order that they are out of baguettes. They did this to me at least 3 times! Not so good service taking into consideration how much their customers pay for such a little amount of food.
The rewards program was also horrible in a sense that for a certain amount of visits I get rewarded like a dollar off something. There was an instance when I had to visit 7 times to get a reward. I was very curious of the reward after the 7^th visit, so I kept coming to Panera, and when I came in to check what my next reward is, thinking it had to be at least a free sandwich or something (because it’s 7 visits to unlock a reward), to my disappointment, it was 1 dollar off a pastry. WOW, that was the last straw, I’m not going back to this place.

Managed to get in before the lunch crowd which was good because the place got packed quickly after.
Really fast service, food started arriving at the table before everyone had finished ordering.
Taste was pretty good, everything was fresh well prepared.
Price was just over $ 10, not bad for lunch. However, small portion sizes. If you are hungry skip the pick 2 option and go for 2 different full size choices. Even the women who usually end up getting some of their meals to go from other outings finished everything.

Thread cautiously Unilocaler; prepare for a Battle Royale /​Hunger Games like competition for booth, and large table seats — oh, and of course power outlets. (It’s worth baring in mind that people LOVE to study at this location, as in 2 — 3 hour sessions.)
The cashiers are friendly, professional, and have a strong product knowledge — oh, and they up sell like smooth criminals. (That means experience in my books!)
Would love to come by more often, if it weren’t for the lack of seating.

I can’t believe that panera bread gave me a bad experience!!! For a while I have been buying lunch from panera bread and ever since yesterday night I am not going to be back !
I went to grab dinner around 9 an hour before closing on a Friday. I walked inside and they seem to be getting ready to close, I asked the cashier which pasta would have tomato sauce and she insisted that the pesto pasta would have tomato sauce, and I thought that was slightly odd because I mean it’s named pesto for a reason. I even asked a couple of times if she was SURE it has tomato sauce. She said «YES!!! Red sauce as in TOMATO sauce !! «so I believed her …
And I also ordered some flatbread that came with the pick 2, I asked for only the BBQ flatbread to be toasted but guess what ?? They toasted the wrong flat bread. Plus the flat bread was still cold!!!
So. Little did I know, being told by the cashier the pasta was made with tomato sauce. I was so surprised when I got home nearly wanted to go back to panera bread and yell at her for giving me the wrong info! Once I opened the pasta container I was devastated about the amount they gave for the price I paid!!!
Not only did it come in small portion, it looked terrible and tasted cold and oiled out…
I also got a soft roll (type of bun) that comes with it and man oh man. How could they not give you butter !!! I mean they gave me a knife and fork but for what reason would I need a butter knife without the butter …
I literally paid $ 27 for this crappy dinner where as I could’ve eaten somewhere even better.
You know what, maybe it’s because it’s almost time to close at 10pm!!! But cmon… this is not how it’s supposed to be !!!

Panera bread is such a cute place to have a cute little date or a nice place the study, although since this location is the closet location to where I am, it was upsetting to hear that the soup and the breads for the bread bowls were gone. I believe if you have successful business you should have enough supplies for all your customers. My friend and I travelled from Durham to try it. The food was good but the fact that the bread bowls weren’t available and the soup that was requested was not available but yet on the menu was disappointing.
Although the food is delicious, the chipotle chicken panini was amazing. I definitely recommend this if you don’t mind the spice.
Now the staff, the cashier that was helping us spoke really quiet which made it very difficult to understand anything she said. Other then that it was good from my experience there, I’d definitely recommend coming here to anyone looking for good soup and freshly baked bread.

I love this location of Panera bread. Friendly staff who are helpful within a nice atmosphere. The food was delicious and I appreciate that they bring the food to your table. The only negative comment is that the price is a bit expensive.

I love panera for healthy (ish) fast food!
Been here since opening day on day 1 @ 6AM, still coming here today.
This panera is usually very crowded, especially during lunch rush and weekends but the staff are all great and work efficiently. The front-​line staff are always pleasant and friendly, and always serving with a genuine smile. I like that.
They are helpful and don’t rush you as you are deciding what to order, and they always give recommendations if you don’t know what you’re going to get.
I love the idea of paying and sitting first and then the food comes to you like a formal restaurant. The food comes very quickly and it’s always made fresh for that day.
I find the soups here to be amazing! I love the chicken noodle and black bean. If you like bread, you will absolutely adore the bread bowl. Soooo hearty and good! I can never finish the bread though, it’s just too much carbs for one meal.
The drinks are also pretty good! They always change and you should try them all!
I love the salads as well, the portions are pretty good & will fill you up!
It’s not the cheapest option, but definitely more worth it than something like mcdonald’s.

I’ve been here a couple of times and always had an enjoyable experience! Recently I came here with a couple of friends to have a meal before a soccer game. I decided to go for the whole Chicken Cobb Salad with avocado and a side of baguette. I love their salads here. There were a lot of avocados in my salad and being an avocado lover… I have to say that I was in heaven! There were chunks of bacon, hard-​boiled eggs cut in halves and loads of chicken slices in my salad. The creamy dressing and chunks of blue-​cheese in there made it even better!
The staff there is always friendly (they never rush you to order when you are stuck at what you want to order cause everything seems sooo yummy!) and I love the fact that you can order and just to chill in a booth and have someone bring your food to you. They have free wifi and a rewards point system. Speaking of rewards point system! I was able to get a free Chai Latte! It was a bit too foamy for my liking but it came in a huge mug and tasted just right!
Came here with a couple of friends to have a meal before a soccer game. I decided to go for the whole Chicken Cobb Salad with avocado and a side of baguette. Loved it