Fair enough.
And I’ll leave my bitching about the entire staff clapping for people on their birthdays for the Texas Roadhouse pit thread, if there ever is one.
Now yer talkin’
lol reminds me of lous diner in the blondie comic strips
yeah, that happened to the place we used to live by …when ming sold his sitdown restaurant … he opened a mall food court type of place. However, you could still order the specialties he made and it was still good … then he retired. It seemed every 3 or 4 years it had a new owner … last time I inquired about one of the specialties on the wall menu I was actually told … " I don’t think anyone here knows how to make them these days … they’re all Hispanic cooks the old man j(the 9th owner in 15 years) just supervises these days …
I’ve found Panera barely adequate in the past, but the last two I tried served simply disgusting food. I don’t much care, but won’t be sad if they go.
I don’t like the pricing for their Pick 2 combos. 1/2 salad or sandwich costs more than 1/2 the price of a full. For example a full Green Goddess Cobb plus a Chicken Bacon Rancher is around $22. So Pick 2 should be $11, right? No, it’s $14.
Oh, don’t be ridiculous.
There isn’t a product sold anywhere* in the world that works that way - smaller quantities are always more expensive per unit than larger ones.
*For some exaggerated values of “anywhere"
No it’s not! Sorry, butter has always been my downfall. I looooooooooove butter.
Did you (the) OP intend for your thread title to be “A Fear …” or is that a typo for “I Fear …”.
It’s a trivial thing and either is a perfectly cromulent thread title, but it’s been driving me nuts for a week now.
I keep reading it a Foghorn Leghorn voice
Ah say, ah say there boah, ah feah that Panera is doomed.
Which probably belongs in the “misread thread titles” thread. 
Yeah, it was supposed to be “I fear…”, but I just let it be, because it makes sense with the typo, too.
Hehehe, I keep seeing it and thinking. “Yeah, fear is no way to market a sandwich shop.”
I thought that’s what the OP was going for.
Are you sure this wasn’t just COVID related? a lot of places started keeping stuff locked up so it wouldn’t get contaminated.
Pre-Covid.
I don’t see them advertising anymore. And that’s a good thing. I HATED those commercials of people shoveling food in their open, chewing mouths.
Man, I thought I was the only one!
A very timely article for this discussion:
https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/07/food/panera-charged-lemonade-discontinued/index.html
Other than the title (the Charged Lemonade being dropped), a chunk near the end caught my eye:
The changes come as Panera is planning to go public again later this year. In November 2023, the chain laid off 18% of its corporate workforce, amounting to 300 people, and Reuters recently reported that it’s loosening the standards it sets for its ingredients in an effort to save $20 million annually.
So cost cutting on the corporate level, PLUS a reduction in ingredient standards? Oh yes, that does IMHO increase the chances of being doomed. Cutting quality and artificially inflating value by reducing costs to facilitate a sale and then the current owners dumping it ASAP seems shockingly likely.
I stopped at a Panera today but did not order because the person told me they no longer accept cash. I just turned around and left. I went across the street to McAllisters and had a really nice club sandwich and their awesome potato salad.