Panera Bread — Restaurant in Brick Township

I’ve always suspected, of course, that the food here wasn’t really fresh. My assumption is everything is made elsewhere and prepackaged. Just like any other chain restaurant.

With that said, I found it quite funny the blatant false advertising of their Iced Chai Latte. I’m surprised this is even legal. How in the world can they advertise this as “freshly brewed” when the ingredients literally say they use a syrup that contains tea extract.

If tea extract can be considered freshly brewed, then please consider me a newborn.

Also, by the way, the Chai was garbage. The cinnamon flavor (from the oil) was so over powering that it just tasted like melted Red Hot candies. Like, I guess cinnamon oil is technically natural, but it tasted so unbelievably artificial.

I didn’t get past three sips before I tossed it.

Their food is what it is. If you like it, and you don’t expect it to be great, by all means enjoy. However, if you’re new, definitely don’t go into this thinking they use fresh ingredients or that they’re baking the bread or anything like that. They are no more better...

I’ve had two interactions with this Panera location- one in person and one online delivery order. The in person visit: a few weeks ago I stopped in to pick up dinner. There was no one behind the counter- I waited there for several minutes and a woman kept bringing out refilled drink containers and when she was done doing that, she went behind the counter to tend to the line of people waiting to place or pick up orders. Yesterday, I placed an online delivery order for lunch and two bagels. One of the bagels was not in stock and was not included in my delivery. I called the store and was told that it was out of stock and “they planned to refund me”. Several hours later I called back and was told (by the same person I spoke with earlier, with an attitude) that they couldn’t process a refund on the same day as the transaction (?), so they’d do it tomorrow. It was only a bagel, but this is annoying- and it is now “tomorrow” and still have not received my refund. This place could learn a thing or two about customer service. I won’t be back to...

I would render a bet that I have been to more Panera Breads than most people who work for Panera Bread in their franchise offices. I have seen the good, the bad, and the ugly. The good here is that it is clean and new and streamlined. I like the layout. The bad is that it is hard to access unless you are coming East on Rt 70. The ugly is that the staff seems like they don't like their job (at the register). The restaurant has moved away from being "healthy" and when trying to modify something to have no meat, the staff I encountered were very closed off to the idea of a substitution of any sort. I know it is possible because I have gotten substitutions at many Paneras. It just seemed like he didn't know what he was doing, so he said it couldn't be done. I left and got a beautiful salad with Vegan proteins next...