Panera Bread — Restaurant in Alafaya

🍞🥪🍲Warm, Delicious Soups & Sandwiches🍞🥪🍲

I’ve been dining at Panera Bread in Waterford for over five years, rarely ever disappointed with the quality of its food and service. Recently, self-order kiosks have allowed patrons to choose meals at their leisure, with the added benefit of visuals and easy-to-modify special requests (removing ingredients, etc.). The You Pick Two option continues to be my favorite, with a surprising variety of entrée and side-dish combinations. The last time I visited, many of the menu items were unavailable (assumedly due to shortages); however, I still walked away with a delicious meal. Most recently, I ordered:

🥪 Toasted Frontega Chicken – My favorite panini on the menu, finally back from the “secret menu” after a revamp hiatus. It’s as tasty as ever, with a bit more toastiness. My particular serving felt disproportionately bready, but a bit more smoked chicken evenly spread is all that it needed to maintain its gold star. The meat is pulled tender-soft, warmed under creamy mozzarella, juicy tomatoes, zesty red onions, aromatic basil, and sweet-spicy chipotle mayonnaise sandwiched between two slices of toasted Black Pepper Focaccia. Goes down splendidly with a side of soup. And speaking of…

🍁 Vegetarian Autumn Squash Soup – I wish this weren’t seasonal because it’s my absolute FAVORITE soup offered by Panera. Thick, creamy, and just the right balance of sweetness and nuttiness, it’s a smooth, pureed blend of butternut squash, pumpkin, and vegetable broth, with hints of honey, apple, cinnamon, and curry spice with sweet cream. A handful of salted pumpkin seeds on top positively makes it—both in terms of taste and texture.

🧀 Broccoli Cheddar Mac & Cheese – A delicious, slightly healthier twist on traditional macaroni. It tastes almost like Panera’s Broccoli Cheddar Soup, with melt-in-your-mouth soft pasta and juicy broccoli creating a tangy-sweet joyride for the tastebuds.

🥤 Green Passion Smoothie – Refreshing and not too sweet, with a breezy-light fruitiness, the Green Passion Smoothie gets its name and color from the imperceptible spinach infused into the mix. The smoothie is a pureed mix of peach, mango, white grape, and passionfruit. Filling and satisfying.

Of course, no trip to Panera Bread is complete without a pastry (Orange Cream Scone highly...

Utterly dissatisfied!! I never have a problem with Panera so I was SUPER excited that they now deliver as was everyone in my medical office. I decided to order delivery through my app as I was short on time and might not even get a break due to surgeries that need to be done. I ordered at around 11:30-12, got out of surgery #1 (an hour later) and realized I still had not received the food and had 4 missed calls (No voicemail) from a number I can not call back, Assuming it was Panera trying to reach me I call and a young girl answered stating that the driver was waiting outside for me, I didn't answer the phone, so he drove back. And that as soon as another driver came they would have it re delivered. I asked her if they would re make it and she agreed. First of all WHY DID HE NOT COME INSIDE?!? Second: why did I receive an e mail stating that my order was confirmed at its delivery?!? How was it confirmed if the kid clearly drove back to the building with my food?!? I am so upset (and starving at this point because now my lunch break is over, I still have no food, and it has been 2 HOURS) I call again and speak to a manager (Joey, I believe) who nicely assured me he would handle everything, including his employee who was lying to him by telling him he entered my building, and have my food FRESHLY made, would refund my order and have it delivered asap. Delivery was quick, driver was very rude and unapologetically unprofessional, asked me to sign the credit card slip stating I owed $20. I had received and e mail minutes prior to him arriving informing me that my order had been refunded and to allow 7-10 business days to see the transaction, so why am I signing a slip? And why was he so blind as to what was going on. I had to show him the email and told him to talk to his manager who, again, reassured me he would be making fresh food to be delivered. I opened my soup to find it had been OBVIOUSLY sitting in the same paper/plastic container for 2 hours!!!!! I KNOW WHAT SOGGY PAPER LOOKS LIKE!! if you don't, then here are some pictures!!! I am absolutely disgusted at what happened...

So I come to this Panera Bread, and I see that there are person-less ordering touchscreens all over the place, which I hate. I go up to the actual person, a very nice young lady, and I ask what her favorite/the most popular pieces of the Pick 2 are.

I ended up getting the Chipotle Chicken Avocado Melt (Smoked, pulled chicken raised without antibiotics, smoked Gouda, fresh avocado and cilantro, zesty sweet Peppadew™ piquant peppers and chipotle mayo on Black Pepper Focaccia). This was pretty solid. It was chicken and cheese. Ya know. Avocado adds a great texture and fattiness, and the peppers combined with the chipotle sauce added that tangy acidity that was awesome. Good sandwich.

For my soup, I got Vegetarian Summer Corn Chowder (Roasted corn and skin-on red potatoes slowly simmered with sweet cream, poblano peppers and cilantro). The important thing with this soup is that the chunks of potato were so perfectly cooked. Not too firm or anything. The poblano taste was the most dominant thing, which was nice and subtle and I liked it. If you don't like the taste of poblano peppers, avoid this. Also, the soup could have used a little more seasoning to enhance it. It was a little bland.

The meal came with a big hunk of a baguette that was pretty good. Soft and chewy on the inside. Firm and crisp on the outside. A perfect accompaniment to the soup.

For dessert, I had a Cheese Pastry (Freshly baked pastry made with our cream cheese filling and cinnamon sugar topping). It was ok. The pastry was nice, but if there was cinnamon sugar topping on there, I couldn't tell.

Overall, it was all pretty ok. I'd come back, but only if it...