Panera Bread
Reviews and Complaints

The elderly lady I care for loves Panera bagels. We eat in this store at least once a week sometimes more. I go through the drive through often also. I'm not one to complain really but literally every single time we order there is something not right. I am not exaggerating. It is beyond frustrating. The last thing, we had then deliver. They forgot the baguette that came along with my salad. We love the food and don't have another store close to us but please fix this problem. It is just over the top. Thank you. The store is on Electric Road in Roanoke, VA.

Good afternoon
I am writing because I have never been treated this way at Panera before and I was very disappointed
I ordered two sandwiches that I asked to have the bacon removed because I don't eat bacon. When my food was ready I got up to get it only to find that my sandwiches had bacon in it I let the person behind the counter know that o asked to not have bacon on it the employee snatched the tray out of my hand and grabbed the sandwiches with her hand gave me a bad look and throw them away. She sarcasticly said I need two more with no bacon
When they finally made the new sandwiches I had asked for chips with my meal and they gave me bread when I let her know she said "omg" and throw the chips to me
I was very very disppointed and I would not be stopping but at that Panera bread again

Apparently panera has quit making their own cream cheese and now serves "packets" of mass produced, horrible quality cream cheese.
When i spend $3.00 for a bagel and cream cheese I expect to have high quality products not some commercial made cream cheese that is intended to last for years that tastes horrible!
Very disappointed and do not plan to return. Brueggers has seemed to manage to not have fake cream cheese whats up?
I asked simply for an asiago cheese bagel with regular plain cream cheese. Was given two little k cups of reduced fat cream cheese (which is NOT rhe same; so i asked for veggie cream cheese. She gave me honey walnut. I had to correct her three times) then i asked for silverware to spread the cream cheese and was told it was in my bag. I opened up the bag to show the cashier that was missing also. She got annoyed with me and someone else had a fork ready to go for me (thank you not so hih panera worker). Overall just a bad experience. The new cream cheese was awful and i ended up throwing away the bagel i had just spent my last $3 on. Mind you I am low income struggling to make it after a house fire so that $3 bagel was like a $50 cheesecake to many of you.

Online order# [protected]
Cafe order# 925218
Location: 15450 Wallisville Rd, Houston, Texas 77049
Date: 05/11/2018

Ordered & paid for 1x Brownie with order (order had 2x "pick two" orders - broc ched soup & bbq chick fb, and chipotle avocado melt & broc ched soup) - didn't receive the full order :( :( :( (the brownie was missing). Would like a refund for the brownie, please!

Advise if anything else is needed.

Thank you.
J Hobson

Panera management team,

This is not my first rodeo at Panera. As an outside sales rep, I have been giving you business for years. You have a great regional director in Stacy (don't know her last name.)

Since, management turned over last year at your Shiloh, IL facility you have had many issues. I hear customers complaining about the service and wait times hear on a consistent basis. My beef is that I order online (for your convenience, as I have been instructed to do at this facility ) & add in the special instructions (see order below.) I would like bagels sliced and bagged separately w/cream cheese, etc as they are going to different places. They rarely get this right, this time I had two boxes of UNsliced bagels with the cream cheese & knives (no napkins) all in one bag sitting next to the boxes on the shelf. Also, no receipt which makes it difficult to identify and do my expense report. I have resigned myself to the fact this is the best service I am going to get at this store and just add napkins and re-pack everything myself. Johnny is always kind to help me out with this. I have brought this to Patrick & Heather's attention on several occasions. It falls on deaf hears. I now just feel like an annoyance to them so I get my stuff and leave.

I do appreciate Judy and the staff at the Fairview Heights location. They always give excellent service with a smile. Sadly, that location is farther from my house. Just thought you should know this, as I am not the only customer complaining, just the only one who took time to contact you about this.

Sincerely,

Dawn Lance

Panera

Thanks for your order!

Order number:
[protected]

Time Ready:
09:18 AM

Please find your order on the Rapid Pick-up shelf in the cafe.

Please contact us at 855-3-PANERA [protected]) if you need any assistance with your order.

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UPDATE PREFERENCES
Order Details

Order Type Cafe Address

Take Out 3120 Green Mount Crossing Drive
Date: 05/10/2018 Shiloh, IL 62269
[protected]
Time Ready: 09:18 AM

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Special Instructions: Please slice all bagels in 1/2 and bag w/cream cheese, knives and napkins. Each bagel pack going to a separate location so please pack accordingly.

Order Summary

Bagel Pack $ 13.99

2 Cranberry Walnut Bagel

Plain Bagel

3 Asiago Bagel

5 Cinnamon Crunch Bagel

Sesame Bagel

Sprouted Grain Bagel Flat

2 Plain Cream Cheese Spread Tub

All Unsliced

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Bagel Pack $ 13.99

2 Cranberry Walnut Bagel

Plain Bagel

3 Asiago Bagel

5 Cinnamon Crunch Bagel

Sesame Bagel

Sprouted Grain Bagel Flat

2 Plain Cream Cheese Spread Tub

All Unsliced

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Subtotal $ 27.98
Tax $ 0.49

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Total $ 28.47

Feel free to tip your bakery-cafe team for excellent service.
Never expected. Always appreciated.

Type Amnt. Balance
MAST 1040 $ 28.47

MyPanera Number: [protected]

Available Rewards: 1
(1) Free Pastry or Sweet (Expires 2018-07-09)
Visits to Next Reward: 3
Catering $ to next reward: 371.86

I asked for his name, It's Vince Caputo. He made me very uncomfortable because he openly talks about his problems with employees to other employees. A manager should NOT be gossiping to other employees about things someone else under him have done. I just sat there and cringed and waited for Vince to stop talking before I would even take my order. He should be fired. He clearly does this on the daily. One of the employees saw me cringing and told me how weird and uncomfortable with it they were too. this employee even told me he asked one of them if they thought one of the bread makers was "hot". If my manager, who is twice my age, asked me if a girl, half his age, was hot, Id probably quit on the spot. ITS SO WRONG on sooo many levels. Its so disturbing and wrong. Send a HR representative out to the panera where Vince Caputo works in Catonsville and talk to the employees and you will see just how much gossiping he does. I'm not going back to that panera until he's gone. I work in food, and if my boss was gossiping about me to other coworkers, i'd be sooooo pissed off. I bet ever since VInce was hired, that panera's ratings have dropped. Im also not going back, Vince just lost a regular and earned a one star rating. If it were up to me, he'd be fired immediately. Not professional at all.

To Whom it May Concern,

It has been more than 2 months since my husband dislodged a filling on his tooth by biting into a screw that was served in his salad at a Panera restaurant. I am utterly appalled that we have had ZERO contact from Panera about this incident, as we left our phone number, mailing address, and email address with the on-duty manager, who neglected to give us a copy of the incident report she filed or even a business card of hers, which we found to be very unprofessional. She did take the screw for evidence and we also have a photo of it.

We were having a meal at Panera on this day, and all four of us had ordered a soup and salad. My husband was eating his when all of a sudden, we heard a crunch, and he spat out a screw. As a consequence of crunching down hard on the screw, his filling on his tooth was damaged. It is very lucky he did not chip his front tooth as a result of the screw.
Because of this experience, we are hesitant to go back to Panera and he still has a fear of salads at restaurants as such.

And yet, despite all of this, there has been no communication, whatsoever, from Panera.

The incident occurred at a Panera Bread in Hasbrouck Heights, NJ and an incident report was filed. My husband's name is [removed] and we live at [removed]. A phone number you can reach him at is [protected].
His email is [protected]@gmail.com

My email is [protected]@gmail.com. My phone number is [protected].

At the very least, an apology is in order for his suffering.

I expect to be hearing from Panera soon.

Thank you,

Kristen

I wasn't satisfied with the mac and cheese. I usually always get Panera the noodles were hard and rather soupy. Which I never remember it being like, I went to ask the manager if I can have a refund or something else and they were very rude when i came back to talk to them about the Mac and cheese. I really don't appreciate that. I always get Panera and i usually have better experiences.

I left work and arrived at my local Panera Bread in Pembroke Pines, FL. after placed a mobile order to be ready at 6:40 PM. The order was ready on time and all looked fine. As I left the restaurant and headed through the parking lot to my car, the shopping bag broke right through and out spilled all my food. I was able to save the chicken tortellini but my broccoli cheddar soup splattered all over the ground. I took a pic of the bag and maybe you can see why. How could the food preparer use a defective bag like this? I'm really upset because I wanted that soup!

The cookie prices are confusing and not listed anywhere. The price is different from visit to visit, store to store and even the same store with different staff waiting on you. The price seems to vary from $!.16 to $2.22 per cookie. Lately, I've been told you need to order a meal to get the lower cookie price, then it was a meal and a drink and now it's a meal, a drink and only one cookie at the lower price. It's absolutely ridiculous! I spoke with the Perry Hall, Md store manager and she didn't care at all about my customer service. What was important to her was thr cookie policy which is written nowhere. She made me choose to pay the higher price for the additional cookies or return them and refund me. And then I'm sure she threw them away. Customer service and satisfaction means nothing. I contacted chat person and he didn't care either and said it was the policy and that I'd have to speak to the same manager. There was no point. If I got 3 cookies at the regular price it would be more costly than my bowl of soup! The sandwiches here are often sparse and I don't order those anymore. Salads are that way too. There's usually at least one error an order. I probably seem like a complainer but I'm usually not. This was particularly frustrating and just turned me off from Panera in general. I would love it if someone would contact me. Thank you.

5/8/18 - 6:10AM, Good Morning, I placed a RPU order last night. This morning I was early, so I called the shop and Stephanie answered the phone, to tried to explain I would be early and asked if I could pick up my order. She responded very rudely cutting me off mid-sentence, telling me this time I will do it but the next time you will have to wait, because we only make one of each flavor a day, which is false. Some mornings, I've seen two or three of the same kind of soufflé in the morning. I explained, that all she had to do was tell me, let me check if we have it its your, all the other information about I would have to wait the next time was unnecessary.

In the store, I wanted to apologize for stressing her out, she immediately begin over talking me and speaking very loudly, while her co-workers smiled and basically cheered her on and other customers were watching. I never raised my voice, I spoke in a low and calm voice. Needless to say, Stephanie was very rude and unprofessional. I will never go to the Panera at Derby St, in Hingham #203555. She even placed my order in a bag with my name written on it, versus my normal receipt, see attached picture. My first horrible experience with Panera.

Solution - would be to have sensitivity training for Stephanie and better customer service skills. And a customer apology would be warranted for her rude behavior.

Thank you,
Cherelle Posley, [protected]

I went into Panera Bread in Middletown NY. It was the week of 4/23/2018. It was around 12:45 it was busy, but I waited 20 minutes later my Cobb salad came drenched in dressing, no egg, no bacon hardly no salad and stale bread. I asked for the Mgr. And she apologized, and gave me gift card.
A week and 1/2 I gave it another shot. Big mistake! I told them NO onions. 15 min later it arrives loaded with onions, hardly no salad. They come back 20 min later with another salad no egg, no side of bread, it looked like they threw out the onions and left out the egg, and bacon again. I said are you serious with what you are giving me? The Mgr. Came over and I showed him, what I was served. I said this is unacceptable and asked him would u want this? Hr said no, and told me he was a new Mgr. and he just started a day ago. He then tells me sorry, I will give u your money back. I said you know a good Mgr. Would have made things right. I was blown away that he simply did not care he had a dissatisfied customer who use to enjoy her experience at Panera. Bad customer service. Two strikes.
What a Mess Middletown NY

I have eaten Panera souffles for years at many different stores. Sometime in March, I got one from our local Mansfield, TX store and it was all bread with a small dollop of filling in the middle. Spinach/artichoke. I spoke with the manager, Heather, who was nice and said she would speak with the baker. The next week she gave me a free souffle and it was better. The next week, was back to all bread, very little filling so I called again and spoke pleasantly with a man manager who was very nice and said they would remedy the situation. I happened to go to the Watauga store the next week and got one for myself and my daughter. It was overflowing with yummy filling. I also got one at the Parks at Arlington store on Cooper and it was full of filling. Went back to my Mansfield store the next week, all bread, a tiny bit of filling, kind of like a peanut butter sandwich with a thin layer of peanut butter spread over the bread. I am going to have to stop going to my local store. If I want bread, I could fix that at home. I don't know why the Mansfield store is so stingy with its filling. I was even in Phoenix, AZ for the month of February and got several at a store out there during the month, all full of filling and delicious. Our Mansfield store seems to be the only stingy one out there. I hate to have to drive 25 minutes to another store to get a good souffle but that seems to be my only option if I am going to continue getting them. I would have thought all the stores used the same recipe and filled them the same, but not our store apparently. Sadness. :(
Jeanine Brazell

I called Panera Bread on May 2nd to place an order for May 3rd. It was at about 6pm. I needed the order for the next morning at 7:30 am. I was assured that it would be ready. The next morning at 6:52 am I received a call from a Linda, telling me that they only have one pastry ring ready instead of two. I asked why only one had been made; she couldn't answer me. I explained that it was for a celebration that morning and that one would not be enough for everyone. She said, "sorry, about that" in a tone that did not indicate that she was at all sorry, a tone that seemed to be saying that she did not think it was a big deal. She said that they could make another one for 9 am. I informed her that I needed to leave for work by 7:30, which is why that was the pick-up time. I still took that one pastry ring but I humilated myself by bringing it in to work because, just as I suspected, it was not enough for everyone. I still can't make sense of why they would've only made one pastry ring when the order was for two. And it wasn't that they didn't know that the order was for two because she said so when she called apologizing for only making one. So the only thing that I can think of is the fact that they NEVER made ANY pastry ring at all that morning of the 3rd. I don't know why I didn't come to that conclusion earlier. They open at 7 am so Linda calling me at 6:52 to say that they only made one pastry ring doesn't make sense when they were set to open in less than 10 minutes. When would they have made it? What is a more plausible explanation is that the didn't make ANY at all that morning but used the one that was there the night before. When I called the night before they had told me that there was only one pastry ring and I said that I would need two for the next day. I find it deplorable that they would ignore my order and that they would sell me (at full price) day old food and on top of that...a half-hearted apology for the embarrassement that I had to endure at work walking in with one pastry ring that wasn't sufficient for everyone.

The Panera Bread at the loop have a bunch of rude employees. It's early in the morning and I'm not fully awake, so I go in Panera bread at around 6:05, I totally forgot that they don't start taking orders until 6:30 am. A young Caucasian guy looks as if he was annoyed, whispering to another co worker and talking lowly and whispering to a manager, I'm sure it was about me being in there too early and I didn't appreciate how the manager and the guy where talking about me to each other in front of me instead of just telling me to my face that They're not open yet. Especially the female manager. So by the time the manager brought the coffee dispenser out, that's when I realized I was there too early. I do forget sometimes, especially since I don't eat there hardly everyday, So I don't have time to keep up with their business hours. So I asked the guy if I was there too early early, and the manager told me they don't start taking orders until 6:30. Just her tone and the negative energy when the young guy said something to her about me, and she said something smart about it. The presence I received made me upset and uncomfortable and I don't appreciate it. The next time I receive negative energy from them, I will confront them and the manager for their rude behavior because they offended me. My instincts are always right about people.

I called Panera to place a phone order, the person on the phone (Brian, the manager) told me that this location does not take phone orders, he told me I would have to go on a computer and order through rapid pickup. I explained to him that I have placed phone orders before and that the panera phone line has an option for placing phone orders, the recording stated "press option 4 to place a non catering phone order" - the manager proceeded to tell me that they just decided recently not to take phone orders. As I was trying to explain to Brian that my daughter was walking there with her friends, she has no money and I wanted to order and pay for her over the phone so she could eat and because I was in the car I didn't have access to a computer and at that time Brian hung on me while I was talking! I did not appreciate being hung up on, this was very rude.

I went through the drive thru at the Elyria, Ohio location on may 3 around 830. There were no cars in front of me in line. I had 2 separate orders; one being a bowl of broccoli cheddar soup and a pick 2 with Mac and cheese and the Italian sand which. They were out of the bread that came with it, which was fine. I ordered it with no arugula (i saw the order correct on the screen) and it came with arugula on it. The other order was a classic grilled cheese and a flat bread. They were also out of the bread the flat bread came on...when I got home and opened the bag they had given me a small Mac and cheese instead of the grilled cheese sandwich. Just pure laziness and lack of care from this whole place. I paid Almost $30 for food that was incorrect. Very disappointing, will not be back to this location.

Huffman Mill Rd location. There's a glass wall barrier around lobby exit. I've watched numerous customers leave location w hot coffee etc running into glass. Use to have a 5ft cardboard panera sign in front but Corp management had it removed. Ive reported it to location management after watching an elderly man run into w his coffee. Of course, they say there's nothing we can do about it. I'm notifying you of this liability because it's a hazard they someone up management line should correct. 5/3/18

I come almost daily at lunch time. 10/10 times I am made to wait in a long line and there is 1, maybe 2 cashiers working and the rest of the staff is either standing around or in the back. I have a 30 min lunch break and spend 20 min of that in line. What kind of customer service is that? The manager here doesn't know how to run this restaurant and cater to the customer. Today he had 1 cashier there and saw the line and decided to put away high chairs instead of wait on customers. You're about to lose a very good customer at Panera if this doesn't change.

A new manager at a panera in Blacksburg has treated his workers like absolute [censored]. Absolutely everyone has complained about him and it's no coincidence that we have people who have been working at the store for nearly a decade who have decided to quit. Constantly putting workers in areas where they are not trained and getting angry and pulling new rules out of his [censored]. He fires people very publicly and runs his mouth about other workers to everyone in the store and expects no one to find out. Absolutely the worst hire to happen.