Panera Bread — Restaurant in Charlotte

As someone who has life-threatening food allergies, eating out can be hard. I have had problems with this location in the past, with some rude managers or people not taking precautions seriously. Errors on my order, such as not changing gloves or putting the wrong condiments on my sandwich, could cost my life. However, on Monday, October 24th, 2022, I had the best experience with this location. Cynthia was working in the kitchen at the time when I placed my order and I went to the take-out window to tell her my accommodations for my allergies: please change gloves, new knife as I am allergic to some breads, new cutting board, etc. She took my allergies very seriously, even telling another associate not to touch my order because of how severe my allergies are. She was very cautious and alert with my order and she made me feel completely safe. I will definitely be coming back to this location because of Cynthia and her extreme precautions with my life-threatening allergies. The only reason I am giving this location a 4-star review instead of a 5-star review is because I have had recent complications with my orders, as I am a regular customer, to which one of them I did not even eat the food due to the employees not accommodating my allergies. At that time (it has been within the past month), the manager who made my sandwich did not use a new knife while cutting my bread and did not use a new cutting board, so there was potential cross-contamination with allergens. Also, when ordering a smoothie, there was chocolate sauce on the lid (I ordered a Strawberry smoothie, so idk how chocolate sauce got on the lid) which I am not sure if I am allergic to or not. I stress my allergies every time I dine at this location, asking the employees to change their gloves, use a clean knife, a clean cutting board, and be extra cautious, but yet some employees and managers do not understand the severity of my allergies. Cythia did VERY well handling my allergies and I will definitely be requesting her assistance next...

I had a very disappointing experience at Panera Bread in Ballantyne today—and sadly, this wasn’t the first time.

I was working for DoorDash on a very hot day and stopped by this location to pick up two delivery orders. On the way, I called my wife and asked her to place a mobile order for me using her account—just one drink—so I could grab it while I was there. She placed the order about 5 minutes before I arrived.

I ended up waiting about 15 minutes for the two DoorDash orders, and the entire time, my own drink order was still showing as “being prepared.” They couldn’t prepare a single drink in over 20 minutes.

I politely asked the staff several times about it, but they kept brushing it off. Even after I received the two delivery orders and had to leave, my drink still wasn’t ready. I eventually had to leave without it because I was already running late for deliveries. I simply didn’t have time to wait any longer.

What made this even more frustrating is that it wasn’t the first time I’ve experienced such delays at this location. Not long ago, my wife and I placed a simple order and waited nearly 35 minutes for it to be ready. Completely unacceptable.

This kind of service is extremely disappointing and unprofessional. I don’t expect to be coming back to this Panera...

I just had an awful interaction with the “Team Manager” Karen Hicks. My daughter and I walk into the restaurant and I proceeded to enter my rewards number on the kiosk when out of no where this ladies runs up to me and my daughter and says “oh no where closed” and proceeded to wave her hands to shew us out which caught me off guard. I said excuse me and she replied “we close at 9pm” I looked at my phone to see it was 9pm on the dot. When I showed her we’d been inside since before 9pm she responded oh well it’s 9pm now and we’re closed. I didn’t have an issue leaving since they were closed but what I did have an issue with was how she spoke to me. I explained to her that she did not have to be rude about it and there was a nicer way to ask us to leave. She then went on yo say “ I don’t care, just get out, I’ve been here all day and I’m ready to go home”. I asked her why she would talk to me so rudely and she said “Bye, come back tomorrow “and laughed. I told her I would be calling corporate on her and she said “you think I care, thry ain’t going to do nothing “. Panera is this the type of manager you want in your store in such a prestigious location as ...