Panera Bread — Restaurant in Cerritos

Pick 2 - For me, not for you ;p

Today, my fatty self waddled over to the nearest Panera Bread for some light & healthy fare.

I thought the Pick 2 option was what was in store for today - soup or 1/2 salad with a 1/2 sandwich - $6.99 with 1 signature item - $7.99 with 2 signature items - $8.99 all with choice of baguette, bag of chips or apple slices

I opted for the Pick 2, 1 signature item dealio, with the Bacon Turkey Bravo signature 1/2 sandwich, Greek salad and a baguette.

Bacon Turkey Bravo 1/2 sandwich had smoked turkey breast, bacon, smoked Gouda, lettuce, tomatoes and signature dressing on tomato basil bread. Very tasty. The bacon was crunchy, the tomatoes were juicy and the Gouda was smoky and rich. I added a packet of the complimentary Gulden's spicy brown mustard to kick my sandwich up a notch and provide a nice nutritional boost.

The Greek 1/2 salad had vine-ripened tomatoes, crumbled feta cheese, pepperoncini, red onions, Kalamata olives, pepper, croutons & Panera Bread's Greek dressing. Crisp, cool and refreshing. The salad was a nice complement to the Bacon Turkey Bravo.

The baguette was simply a baguette and I gave it to someone else in my party.

Overall, not bad at all. The portions seemed small at first, but I can say that my voracious appetite has been satiated for the time being. Of course, it's a sleeping dragon that will rear it's ugly head sooner rather than later, but it's content for now. And if my appetite is happy, then I'm happy ;p

Plenty of table and booth seating, with the awesome benefit of free Wi-Fi for all you gamers, social networkers, Ebayers and online porn viewers. The A/C was on blast and the place was clean and spotless. Parking is in a private lot that may be crowded depending upon time of day. The lot is shared with Lucille's, Gatten Sushi, Chronic Tacos etc.

By the way, some of Panera Bread's iced coffee "accidentally" got into my cup of water. It was quite good ;p

Overall, I recommend stopping by Panera Bread for the Pick 2 combo for a healthy lunch and/or dinner. Don't forget to sign up for their eclub for a free birthday...

Although I'm a regular customer at the Panera Bread in Cerritos, when I started going there, the servers and cashiers were always friendly and very respectful. The first time I went, I was picking up a delivery take out order for a customer on Door Dash. They were very helpful in giving my delivery order. The 2nd time I went there, it's like they already knew me. They knew I was there for a delivery pick up and immediately got the order I needed for the customer who ordered it. I decided, I was gonna go there as a customer, myself. When I got there, the workers thought I was there for a delivery, but I told them that I'm there as a customer this time because I wanted to know what they had there. They welcomed me and showed me how I could order as a customer to make things easy for me. They told me about the app and informed me that they just started something called, "the sip club." I love the sip club subscription because it enables me to get any of there so club drinks for free every 2 hours for a month, plus for new customers, you get 3 months free trial. That's about $45 worth of the sips club subscription for free. Considering how much I drink, especially in the summer time, I think it's very worth it. The drinks included are any size of any of the fountain sodas, any size of 3 types of hot coffee, ice coffee, as well as 4 different flavor, regular sized hot teas, any sized lemonade, unsweetened tea, and papaya green tea. The good thing about the sip club is free refills and they also allow me to use my own cup. I usually bring one of my big sized tumbler cup because I could use it for hot or cold drinks. I hope I see more of these same dedicated workers at this Panera while I'm still a customer there. Also, this is the only Panera where I get great customer service. I also get great customer service at the Norwalk Panera Bread, but only from 1 of the servers there. You can't miss her. She's the only real woman there. She is the only one that I always see a smile onher face and every time I go there I always see her positively interacting with the regular...

I generally use the rapid pick up option since it’s super convenient. Sometimes they mess up but when given a receipt and the order is incorrect, I’ll just flag someone down and they honor their free pastry rule.

However, today, when I went to order breakfast, their soufflé option disappeared right before I went to checkout. That’s fine, it updated in real time so I was able to delete that from my order and add something different. I went ahead and selected one of their breads and went to the restaurant a little before my designated pick up time. 5 minutes afterwards, still no order on the pick up section. There’s no one available to talk to so I had to go find someone. I asked about my order and he nonchalantly asked around. He found my order and said it was missing the bread, that they ran out because they only make one per day and asked if I wanted anything to replace it. I asked for a refund and he said I needed to give him my card to do that. So off we went to the register to get that taken care of. I then asked - if something like this happens in the future and the website doesn’t auto update, do I have to always chase down a worker to ask about my order? He said, yep sorry. He didn’t care.

TLDR: Anytime your order isn’t updated and they don’t have everything available, they will hide your food until you find a worker and ask about your order - it doesn’t matter how long past your pick order is, it’s the customer’s responsibility to ask when they make a mistake. They will not be proactive or care. Their apologies will be half-assed and that’s just...