IMO Panera was good around 2000 or so, and really started going downhill sometime after that.
Weirdly enough they’re said to be mulling an IPO to go public only 7 years after JAB took it private. I guess they’re raising capital so they can afford lemon wedges?
I can get a salad there, and a chicken BLT, both of which are much lower in fat than typical fast food offerings. In fact, it’s really the only place around where I can get a salad for lunch (a real salad, not some bagged lettuce served in a box).
I got a sandwich to go from Panera a few weeks ago. When I unwrapped it back at my office, I thought “where’s the other half of the sandwich?” and it was meh. If you’re gonna charge $12+ for a sandwich, it either better be great, or big, and it was neither.
Part of the issue is probably that restaurant food, in general, is substantially more expensive than it was a few years ago. Around here (suburban Chicago), a simple combo (sandwich, fries, soda) at a fast-food restaurant is now easily $12 or more, and Panera was always more expensive than a fast-food place.
So why does a company that seems to serve healthier option also insist on selling death caffeine lemonade at the same time? As much as I hate corporate Mission Statements, it seems like they might light to revisit theirs. But if it’s in the clutches of a private equity firm, then it’s fucked. Thank assholes like Mitt Romney for that.
Yep, I read “private equity” and thought “uh-oh.”
my brother worked for Panera in the 90s when they were still a fancy bakery that expanded into light lunch and dinner items … I mean you could buy huge raspberry-filled brownies and the like
which confused me years when they began their “clean” food campaign …
I’ve been to the one we have here once maybe for the broccoli and cheese soup …
I rarely go to Panera, but I was there last week for the first time in probably more than a year.
The food didn’t seem any better than any other sandwich shop.
But here’s the thing that pissed me off:
My preferred meal beverage is always water. I love beer. I love coffee. But with a meal, it’s always water. And I’m opposed to bottled water except in specific situations. The rest of the time I think it’s a waste of money and just unnecessarily environmentally unwise.
So I asked for a cup so I could get water from the soda machine. They gave me the tiniest little thing. I asked for a larger cup and I was told no. I said “If I give you a quarter, will you give me a bigger cup?” “I can’t” was the reply.
I won’t go back.
Yeah, I may have gone to Panera four or five times in the last decade, and every experience was decidedly meh. Every time I met someone there, I just remember looking over the menu and thinking there’s literally nothing I want here. I remember liking their predecessor, St. Louis Bread Company, back in the early-mid-90s as a college student. Maybe it was a combination of being an indiscriminate college student and my fascination with bread bowls! (I’m pretty sure that was the first time I had ever encountered them.)
Looking back at my own relationship with SLBC/PB over 30 years, they were just better 20-30 years ago than they are now. But also bread and bakeries in general have gone up in standard over the last 30 years. And carbs weren’t seen as a dietary evil in the 1990s. I would think of bread as the healthy part of my meal on which I am putting unhealthy butter, cheese, bacon, etc.
I also lived in St Louis and Kansas City during the 1990s. At the time SLBC was head and shoulders above anything else in that segment.
Yeah, anywhere the only water option is a lukewarm overpriced bottled water, I’m not coming back. I’ll visit an airport if I want that kind of bullshit.
Come to think of it, I wonder if that’s Panera’s real strategy, going after captive audiences iike airport food, airline food, sporting events, etc. Places where people have no choice but to take what’s offered and the only consolation is 'well, at least it’s a brand I know used to be good 25 years ago." (sorry that’s the best idea I’ve got)
If so, it will be a well deserved death. I literally haven’t been there in years. Even back then, a little sandwich, a small bag of chips, and a thin pickle slice was over twelve dollars. I can only imagine what it is now. I make better sandwiches on the good bread I want for far cheaper, and it is a quick and easy thing to do. I can make five sandwiches for the cost of their one without any problem at all.
Heh. Been to a Panera once, years ago. Never went back. There are just too many other options.
A guy I know used to tell me about the place he went for breakfast. Kind of a diner, open from 6 am to 2 pm. He stopped there three or four mornings a week.
He told me the coffee was awful, either too weak or nasty strong, but refills were FREE!! The eggs were always either runny or burnt, but they were reasonably priced. The owner was a miserable old woman and the waitresses smoked cigarettes while working. He said he wouldn’t be surprised to find ashes on his plate.
When the place closed my friend was devastated.
My problem with Panera is that they always seem to be out of stuff. Went for breakfast one morning, tried to order a sandwich, but it wasn’t available because they had no eggs. Only found out, by asking a cashier, that they could make it with egg whites if we wanted.
For a while, they had a spicy chicken sandwich that my wife and I both liked. We were able to get it twice, and then every time we looked for it after that, they didn’t have the crunchy fried pickles available so they couldn’t make the sandwich.
Want a rice bowl? Fine, but they’re out of Greek yogurt for it. Now the bowls aren’t even on their menu.
We were struggling to burn through the last of a gift card that we had purchased at a 20% discount. One day we happened to be near a Panera and tried to order a strawberry banana smoothie, but goddammit, they didn’t even have the ingredients to make that. I mean holy crap, how can a big-name national restaurant chain not predict customer demand any better than this?
Some of their baked goods are yummy. I really liked the breakfast soufflé options, but other than that, they aren’t terribly good, in my humble opinion.
This has been my experiance as well and one of the reason I stopped going there years ago. They would run out of Chicken Noodle soup around 4:00 everyday and it never crossed the managers mind to start up another batch for the dinner crowd. Who the hell doesn’t keep an item available that customers obvioulsy want? How hard is it to warm up another batch of soup?
I only go there now in the mornings for coffee and an occasional bagel or breakfast sandwich. I do prefer their coffe over that burnt Starbucks crap.
I would be delighted if Panera goes under. My wife and son like to eat there, so I get dragged along occasionally. There’s really nothing there that appeals to me. Hell, even ordering there is confusing if you’re not a regular. And as noted by others here, it isn’t cheap.
My understanding is that restaurants with self-service fountain soda don’t bother to track the amount of syrup sold but instead count the number of cups sold. So the only way to give you a bigger cup would be for them to sell you a fountain drink. (Most of those soda fountains have a way to dispense plain water.)
I think that’s true, and I know the margins on fountain sodas are insane. But that’s a “them” problem, not a me problem. I’ll take my business elsewhere.
As I mentioned, I have a fundamental problem with bottled water and if the water in the fountain machine is OK for making soda, it’s ok for plain water too. I don’t mind paying for things, and I recognize a need to make a profit, but in the case of the water at Panera it’s a deal breaker.
I won’t miss it. Bad food in a pretentious setting.