Panera Bread — Restaurant in Cleveland

I am writing this letter to bring into your concern, the most recent experience I had on December 9, 2021 at Panera Bread Café # 204634. On the date mentioned above I placed order #660898058 totaling $45.42 at your café for Rapid Pickup. Upon entering the café as per the usual I proceeded to the rapid pickup section to pick up my food which was ready and sealed. I assumed this order to be complete and proceeded back to my office. After unpacking the items and distributing them to the staff we realized that an item was missing from the order. I then proceeded to contact the café directly to inform them of the issue. I was told that they would have my missing item ready for pickup. I returned to the store to retrieve the missing item and was told to go to the line to pick it up. I asked the person would there be any compensation for the inconvenience and I was told very sarcastically “Yes, we are compensating you with your food”. Never could I imagine this level rudeness from any Panera Bread Café employee. I asked to speak to a manger and she informed me that she was the manager. I asked for her name so that I could contact the corporate office and she refused. A pastry, $1 off or a free beverage that I was offered by the actual manager after 10 minutes of waiting is not enough to make the experience great again. All in all I spent over $45.00 for lunch for my staff and it will NEVER happen again especially at this particular Panera. I will miss my Turkey Chili but not for this anguish....

So the customer service was so bad here that I left my phone after I finally got my order- and really stale coffee, and had to come back in the rain- but because no one wants to do anything @ this Panera location, luckily, it still sat where I stood at the register. I live in Cleveland so, of course, I get waited on by rude people all the time- I'm used to it by now and really, expect it- but why management seems to have stuck all the people who want to do as little as possible at the registers.. maybe it's because they don't have much service and that's where they do to hide out? But God forbid you're the customer who needs to make an order- and all I needed was bakery (which was made already) and coffee which, at two in the afternoon hasn't been made since the morning- at least it tastes this way. When it comes to the bakery too, they didn't have what I wanted and I know, in Cleveland, at a place like this- it's hard enough to get the food behind the counter. So if you want a frustrated encounter, come here...like I said, I got so distracted by the bad service and the rain outside starting, I set my phone at the counter and walked away. I'll give two stars instead of one, only because I feel grateful to have it back but threw out a three dollar bad coffee just to...

So we go in, first in line, and place our order. We order a full chipotle chicken avo melt and a full modern caprese sandwich (which isn’t supposed to have meat) and we ask for a regular cup for drinks. The cashier does not give us the cup after we paid and just proceed to cash out the people behind us. We kindly remind her that she did not give us the cup we paid for and she just looks at us and basically ignored us. We finally get the cup from a gentleman who noticed the interaction and decided to do the right thing.

Fast forward about 25 min later and everyone who ordered after us got their food, probably made it home and finished their meal and we were still there waiting... all the workers were just chatting it up having full on conversation while prepping the food. Some of them looked like they were already mentally clocked out. By that point we had already finished our drinks twice and were wondering if our food had to be manufactured at another facility. You would think with all that waiting you would get what you ordered, But nope turns out we got our food, made it home and end up getting the wrong sandwich. Since when did a “modern caprese sandwich” turned into a CHICKEN caprese sandwich??

Moral of the story! You can’t trust this Panera during the...