Panera Bread — Restaurant in Blue Springs

So I am giving this particular PB location 2 stars. I prefer the one in Independence a whole lot more than this one, but this location is closer to my home/place of work (probably why I keep giving them chances). For starters, the food quality here just isn't up to par. The "teas/lemonades" aren't refreshed at all, several times now I have gone in and they are almost empty/completely empty. I like the prickly pear hibiscus tea, but this location puts so much lime in theirs that you can't taste anything else (tastes more like a limeade than tea). The same with their blood orange lemonade, it has always tasted like its gone bad. Next is that they never seem to be able to get the kiosk people their cups. I think last night was the first time ever that I got my cups without having to stand there for forever. To continue they are constantly making my orders wrong, in a wide range of mishaps, from missing ingredients to wrong items to missing items altogether, last night is probably the worst. My sister suffers from ulcers and can't have anything super spicy. She loves the Toasted Frontega Chicken sandwich, it has this chipotle sauce that isn't spicy at all. Tell me why instead of the TFC she got their Chipotle Chicken Avocado Melt (two totally different sandwiches!), which have hot peppers on the sandwich. Poor thing about burned her tongue out! When I went up to tell the them they had made the wrong sandwich the manager acted like it was a HUGE bother to him. Then when I asked for a glass of milk to try and soothe the burning flames in my sister's mouth, the manager rolled his eyes at me. He didn't want to give me the glass of milk (he thought just making the right sandwich over should be enough). I even offered to pay for it just to get her some relief from the burning heat. At that he seemed to have thought better if it and gave me the cup of milk. So, I'll say this . . .if you have the time don't bother with this location go over to the Independence one. Its what I will be doing...

There was NO service, but a 1 Star Rating is the lowest option I could choose….so, yeah. There was a sign at the registers telling everyone to use the kiosk for ordering, because they would rather stare into space and occasionally look at some food to get back into work mode. Apparently 7 or 8 people have to stand around doing absolutely nothing, versus have one of them work at the register where customers should always be ordering from……an actual human. A kiosk does NOT improve traffic flow nor does it increase the amount of customers that you can serve. It’s actually slower for each order to be placed since it’s done through a kiosk and not a human who is hired to work at Panera Bread. What are they paid to do? Panera Bread certainly could save more money, while making the customers come first, if they addressed appropriate utilization of labor costs for staff. The ordering process was much slower and it actually turns away customers because their food actually arrives slower. That’s a double whammy for sure. Making the customers work harder for their meal is not a smart business tactic when a Panera Bread worker should be capable of taking your order and ensuring it was done right, making it less of a worry for the customer. No customer wants to do the work that a Panera Bread employee should already be doing….If a customer really wanted to do the employees work, that customer would fill out an application to work there. WOW….way to go Panera. Oh, and there were 2 tables total that were there, so a REALLY BUSY 12...

A month or 2 ago I gave a 5 star review of the BS location. We ordered twice a week then and EVERY TIME our order was spot on, never had any mistakes. They must have hired different staff or had a change in management or something because they've done a complete 180 the last 4-6 weeks. Missing sandwiches, not giving extra mayo or dressing, mixed fruit cups that are not even 40% full, dressing cups that barely have any dressing in them. I don't understand it at all. Panera has great food so we haven't given up yet, but they need to figure out what's going on because we are on the verge of taking our 2-3 week habit elsewhere. If any Panera representative reads this, please address this. You guys have a serious issue at this location now.

UPDATE 04/16/2020 - I am happy to report that whatever carryout issues they had appear to have been resolved as we have been 2-3x per week since we started our "house arrest" and our orders have been spot on every time just like they used to be. We are really enjoying the food at this location again, bumping up my review back to 4 stars and will consider moving back to a 5 if this trend...