Panera Bread — Restaurant in Alcoa

Slow, mean and hateful.

I had a DoorDash pickup for which I was already sitting in the parking lot when I received said order so I was able to just go straight inside to pick it up.

I tell the worker the name for the order and she says she hasn't started it yet so I move to the side to wait (I'm not even offered the usual courtesy drink most restaurants offer for drivers who have to wait a while for their stuff).

45 minutes later after dozens of other people who came in after me have received their food but my customers order is still nowhere to be seen.

I go back to the worker and she asks me to show her the order again and finally goes into her computer and tells me that the order was already picked up (BY ME, keep in mind that I've been standing here since this order first came through, I've no moved from my spot in over 45 minutes) so I need to call the customer to see if they've gotten it.

Customer says no, of course and I know they haven't gotten their food because I've been standing there 45 minutes waiting to pick it up for her.

Worker then gets an attitude with me and mad that she has to "remake" the "massive" order of like 4 items that she never even made in the first place.

Luckily, my customer was understanding of the situation and wasn't angry with me for missing their lunch break by over an hour and agreed that it was the restaurant's...

Okay so normally I don't have a terrible experience with the Alcoa, TN panera bread but it's not excellent either. I ordered two autumn squash soups bowls. Now usually when I order this item it is the right amount of thickness and flavor. However when I recieved them today they were the consistency of water and there was an whole lay of oil floating at the top of the soup. What's more, there was no flavor and I couldn't even finish one bowl as the oiliness made me want to throw up. I dont even know if I'm going to be able to eat the second even though I hate wasting food. It's that bad. When I tried to find out how to contact Panera to see what could be done to fix this there were no pages to contact, no review pages an when I googled it in order to find out how, the link I was given took me to a 404 error page like panera wanted to remove anyway for people to complain or ask for compensation. That's when I started getting frustrated. I totally get yall have a business to run and sometimes people just wanna complain to complain but if enough people are complaining you should probably do something about things to fix the issue. Not to mention don't make it so difficult for your customers to contact you. We pay you to deliver and when you...

My original review below is two years old and I only gave them 2 stars at that time. I want to update that to 5 stars today. We stopped going here for a long time because of the issues in my first review but we have started going back again. There is a new manager, a young woman and she is doing a great job of turning this place around. The portions have greatly increased and we couldn't be happier. We now go here 2-3 times a week and are loving it.

LOVE THE FOOD, however they are extremely inconsistent about serving amounts. They claim it's measured however every time I get it to go I get substantially less. I don't mind paying extra for the quality of the food but I want the quantity to be worth the price! I even spoke with the regional manager in training a few months back and she said that they pride themselves on consistency however I don't see a change. And it seems to be a problem mainly at this location. We live an hour's drive away and often get it to go, we can't bring it back and to have to check everything before we leave is a hassle. I am really...