Panera Bread — Restaurant in Cincinnati

This review is for the catering department. I am a manager at a local business and we have regularly ordered catering for evening meetings for many years. Of late, service has gone downhill tremendously. The majority of orders are delivered exceptionally late.

It is now 6:15 pm and I am still waiting on my delivery that was supposed to have arrived at 5:15. I called the catering line and it rang and rang and rang and rang.... I disconnected and called the “all other questions” line and was informed that no one answered the catering line because no one is working. There are many more useful solutions than allowing a phone to ring endlessly. I requested an update on the status of my order and was told “she is out for delivery”. I asked what time I could expect my order to arrive as it was already 45 minutes late. The associate informed me it would probably be another fifteen minutes. There was no apology. No explanation. I was incredulous that the associate did not even seem to realize or care that there was an actual problem.

I would have left a complaint online but Panera has limited the number of characters permitted when sending feedback. So I will leave this here.

There is a clear problem with the management of the catering department at this Panera location. I will no longer be placing my orders at this location which will be a loss of business of 26 catering orders per year.

It is now one hour and seven minutes past my order arrival time and it still has not arrived.

Avoid the catering service at...

Customer service was not good. The girl told me several times that they dont have what I was asking for. But I know they do...I've ordered it before but bickering with me was definitely the right thing to do. Finally-she relented after being schooled by another staff member. So then...this bakery did not have any warm chocolate chip cookies available. Why dontcha just twist the knife with that disappointment. Lol. My experience continues on with a decent attempt at bring rooked outta 1 part of my already small order. Luckily-I've been screwed in this very same way inn the pay so I check and surprisingly, i realize I'm missing a bakery item. Have no fear reader...I myself do eventually find my MIA item just sitting on a some nearby random countertop. I know, I know, or at least now I know that im supposed to go seek out all the parts of my order. Its crazy to assume your entire order is in the to-go bag they hand you. I dont know why i assumed such a crazy thing. My fault entirely. But the management...ooooh weeee...they are something else. They did look at me. Didn't say a word...just looked at me as I asked about my missing item, irritated. Not one word. It was more than odd. Ya know...I'm so glad i spent over 20 bucks for 4 items and this lame experience. Oh and once I got all the way home...I was under-whelmed with a soup or rather a broth with a small dash of ingredients. I gotta go-im hungry for something decent and substantial. Booooooo Panera...a huge failure...

Anyone who rates this as a terrible place is hilarious. Most of the staff are college students just trying to get by; tired, overworked, and underpaid. Of course no one cares about your orders, they are not paid to and know this job is temporary. I always have great service here but they do mess up my order semi-frequently, but my order also gets messed up at other places too. Overall, I really enjoy when Chai would take my orders because she always had great customer service. I was here once and someone threw a hot coffee at a barista complaining there wasn't enough creamer, but it looked like his cup had only creamer and it was also self-serve creamer, lol. Another time, a lady tried to walk behind the counter, steal someone else's order, then cussed out the manager for taking too long to help her but lied about having placed an order because she "lost the email" to confirm. Another time, a girl cut her hand because the management didn't fix the bread slicer for nearly a year and the girl was cussed out by the customer for getting blood in his bagel; the girl threw the bagel away and asked someone else to help the customer while she went to the back. I checked on her later and she was in tears having been the only one working from 4AM until the next person came in at 10AM, clearly overworked and underpaid. Wished management paid more attention to the needs of the staff and that customers gave these poor kiddos a break, they are just here for college not to...