I’ve noticed this to be a particular problem with our Panera. It’s not just bread bowls; they are out of some damned thing almost half the time we go there. (Why do we still go there then? Because they have relatively fast options that are less deadly than average.) It’s annoying, but if it doesn’t stop us from going there, it probably doesn’t stop anyone else either. If they can waste less money on extra food without losing customers, they have no real reason to change.
If it happens once in a while…well, shit happens.
However, I stopped going to Popeyes because the only one even close to nearby where I live was always–like 8 consecutive times in a row–out of
A) Spicy chicken
B) regular chicken
“But we have chicken strips/nuggets/tenders/whatever they’re called”
“I don’t like those. When will you have chicken–is it cooking now?”
“We’re not allowed to make any more.”
“It’s 5:30 pm. You’re open 'till 10:00 pm. Really? You’re out until then?”
“Most people don’t like chicken with bones”
I gave up at that point. Also, while I’m all for hiring the handicapped, Popeyes seems to go overboard with that policy–and really, should they always be behind the register?
(I love Popeyes, but man–never having chicken and always getting something wrong in an order–they’re making it hard for me to have them as my guilty pleasure.)
I just checked my Sysco order guide. The have a few options for bread bowls, but they all cost about a dollar. Let’s say they cost Panera 50¢ each all said and done, if they throw away three each day, that’s over $1600 a year in the garbage. That’s an extra $1600 that the customers have to come up with via higher prices.
Also, a good rule of thumb when you want to know how much a restaurant pays for something is to take what they charge you and divide it by three. (The standard restaurant profit margin is 70%). Can you walk into a Panera and buy just a bread bowl (empty)? What do they charge for it?
I went to a hamburger restaurant one time that was out of buns. Out of buns! They offered to put it on some white bread that they use for grilled cheese. I grudgingly accepted and it was as bad as I expected it to be.
And you ever notice that McDonald’s shake machines always break down an hour before they close? It’s weird, really. Suddenly every shake machine in the McDonald’s universe is broken right before closing time. I assume it just needs a good night’s sleep because it’s working just fine the next morning.
I haven’t been to Panera in a while but I recall being annoyed when on three consecutive visits, at least one of which was still early in the day (lunchtime), they were already out of bread bowls for the rest of the day. I asked them honestly if it was ever actually possible to buy soup in a bread bowl, or if it was just a legend.
Maybe you have better odds if you show up at 7 a.m. for a breakfast of chicken noodle soup. I gave up trying.
Some years ago I went into my regular Mexican restaurant and ordered a house margarita, only to be told they were out of house margarita. OK, fine, give me a top-shelf margarita for the price of house.
NO! If you want a margarita you’ll have to get the $7.00 one instead of the $5.00 one.
How the hell do you run out of house margaita???
I think it’s just Panera’s SOP to run out of stuff. The local one runs out of bagels all the time, and that’s their bread and butter. They always run out of “souffles” before 9 am too. I’ve pretty much stopped going there since I can be reasonably sure they won’t have what I want.
I can understand the concept of saving through waste reduction, and I know it can be near impossible to plan perfectly at a place like PB, but I’d also think if you ran out of bagels before 9 am, and had to turn away customers every single damned day, you’d maybe, just maybe bake a few extras each day until you reach that sweet spot. Maybe they only have the capacity to make so many.
There is a popular greasy burger place in my hometown. Often I would order the open faced chili burger, only to be told they didn’t have chili. This happened at least 20 times. One day I told the manager he should just take it off the menu if he didn’t want to make or buy chili. And he did! He put white tape up over the lettering while I watched. Funny.
Some years ago I went into my regular Mexican restaurant and ordered a house margarita, only to be told they were out of house margarita. OK, fine, give me a top-shelf margarita for the price of house.
NO! If you want a margarita you’ll have to get the $7.00 one instead of the $5.00 one.
How the hell do you run out of house margarita???
They’ve been filling the top shelf bottles from the rotgut booze and accidentally ran out of the cheap stuff.
Maybe they meant they ‘broke them down’ to clean them.
A while ago I needed a spare oven part from Sears. I was searching on their website and found that they have one of those “put your number in and we’ll call you” forms, which are so much better than waiting through a phone tree and an unknown length on hold. I put my number in.
Almost immediately my phone rang. I answered it, and heard a recording: “You have reached us outside of our normal office hours. Please call back between the hours of…”
Uh, great job, guys.
I can assure you that’s what they were doing. What they said might be subject to interpretation.
Properly cleaning a shake machine is a real pain in the ass. Shutting it down early and starting the cleaning process gives you a real head start in terms of getting out on time/early. Most places say that they can’t break them down early, but people always do, hoping that nobody orders a shake in the last 15 minutes they’re open.
But it’s in their name. Panera Bread. If you go to the website in their About Us section, the first two sentences are “We are Panera. We are bakers of bread.” So I would argue that it is like KFC running out of chicken.
They do.
My sister worked at a Panera for a few months, earlier this year, as a baker. As I understand it, most, if not all, of the baking is done on-site, during the overnight shift (my sister worked from around 10pm until 6am). As the day goes on, they’re more and more likely to find themselves out of any particular bakery item, such as bread bowls. Because the bakery is really only active during that overnight shift, if they run out of bread bowls at 2pm, there’s probably no way for them to make up a new batch that day.
If your Panera is consistently out of a particular item, especially if it’s not late in the day (i.e., you shouldn’t be surprised if they’re out of something at 8pm), that’s definitely something you want to let the manager know about (venting here feels good, but it isn’t going to change things at your Panera 
). If they’re out of bread bowls by 4pm, while the cashiers may be telling customers “sorry, we’re out”, they may or may not be noting the “unfilled orders” in their system (so that whoever is in charge of determining what gets baked knows that they have consistent unfilled demand for an item).
I doubt they have any more advanced a system than:
cashier: Hey, I’ve had 5 people ask for bread bowls since we ran out.
manager: Oh, I’ll leave a note.
The manager’s likely to care if he’s losing sales, or disappointing customers…and he’s going to be the one who determines the quantities that the baking team makes (I can guarantee you that the bakers get very specific orders on what to make, and how much). If he doesn’t care, he probably won’t be manager for very long, but that’s another issue entirely.
It’s the communication from the cashiers to the manager that is going to be iffy, at best, which is why I suggested making sure that you tell the manager directly.
Not telling you to bake if you don’t like to or know how to, but any good French/Cuban/Italian bread dough will make delicious bread bowls if divided into softball-sized spheres, allowed to rise, and somewhat overbaked so it’s very crusty. (Throwing an ice cube into the baking pan a few times during baking will also promote crustification.)
Allow bowls to cool for at least 15 minutes, slice off tops, tear out some of the crumb, pour in soup. Mmmmmnumnumnum.
The problem comes (and I don’t have the answer) when they make an extra 10 the next day and throw away 12 of them because it was a slow day. The following day, they, again, make an extra 10, but those 10 are still sitting there when they close. So after that they go back to making the normal amount and when those are gone, a group of 5 people come in on their lunch break and all want bread bowls.
It’s tough.
At my work we tried bread bowls but had such a hard time predicting them that we gave up on it. It was getting too expensive to keep throwing them out. We finally just gave up and told the handful of people that bought them a lot to call in the morning if they want one and we’ll have one ready for them (we keep them frozen).
Oh, I am more than aware. I used to work at a bagel shop and thank god I don’t any more.
The one and only time I’ve been forced to go to Hooters, they were out of wings. The waitress said that the whole shipment went bad. I’m glad they didn’t serve us, but knowing that didn’t make me want to come back.