Panera Bread — Restaurant in Chillicothe

I went to this location a couple weeks ago but I’m deciding to leave this review now since it’s been annoyingly stewing in the back of my head and I think about it every time I drive by the place.

A couple weeks ago was the first time I’ve been to Panera in years, I have been living in a location that doesn’t have one and now that I do I was excited to get to eat there again. As I go to order Im overwhelmed by the choices but am able to finally decide on a chicken avocado sandwich (which was really good). However when I go over to pick up my sandwich I see a giant slab of bread next to my already giant bread sandwich. I ask the gentlemen handing my food “im so sorry to bother you but would I be able to get a bag of chips instead?”. He then huffs and asks me “did you ask for the chips??”. I said “oh no I totally forgot it’s been awhile since I’ve been here and no one asked me what I wanted for my side”. He then snaps the bread off my tray SUPER AGGRESSIVELY and says “you have to tell us what you want otherwise you’ll always get bread.”. Okay good to know for the further but two things bothering me with this.

If someone is new to Panera how will they ever discover there is a different choice of sides if no one asks them what they want as their side? On top of that why would the default side be a chunk of bread for a bread sandwich? Wouldn’t it make more sense that the default side for soup would be the bread and the default side for sandwiches be the chips? Either way I feel like the gentlemen could’ve of just nicely stated I’m sorry we didn’t have a sign for you or a reminder but just in case I would make sure you request chips so our staff knows since this is the usual default. Just a thought 🤷🏼‍♀️- either way it has caused me not to revisit Panera since with the fear I’ll get my food snatched...

3-9-23 @ 4:25 pm. Ordered at the drive thru. Only one car in line ahead of me, ordered five things total, two bowls of soup, two sandwiches, one bread bowl empty. $41.75 then they forget the bread bowl, found out fifteen minutes later when i got home. My sandwich (chipotle chicken avocado...) looked awful, not aesthetically pleasing at all. Taste was bland and underwhelming. Creamy chicken and rice soup was okay. Wife loved her sandwich (Bacon turkey bravo on Miche), but not the soup (chicken noodle). I am sure she would have liked it better hot in the bread bowl as she wanted it. But it takes fifteen minutes to drive back across town in traffic to get one item she ordered but did not get. Due to that my food was also cold when I got back to eat it. For the money spent the foods flavor, customer service, pride of work and value was not there for me. Only eaten here twice now. May not be a third. Not saying do not eat here, just sharing my experience and my...

Hmmm. Well the food was very good, BUT the signage was a bit confusing. Being a vegetarian, I appreciated how the board has a small green circle indicating vegetarian selections. All cool for the sandwich board. The salad board has the same thing, or so I thought. Its small green circles indicate may have tree nuts. But because the circles are the same size and color, I thought they meant the same. SO my salad came with tons of chicken on it. I admit, my mistake. But when I went to the front to check it out, there was no offer of exchange or even any sympathy😞. Thankfully the hubs eats meat. So.....that was my experience. I would also like to add the people it there had NO customer service. They were not mean or anything but geez, smile, say hello, ACT like you are happy to serve me! Make eye contact! That's...