Panera Bread — Restaurant in Duluth

Duluth, MN is the worst Panera location I have been to. I really like the food at Panera and keep trying to give this location a chance, but everytime, I am extremely disappointed and have heard every excuse in the book as to why the service stinks (not enough help, covid, too many employees calling out ill, someone new or inexperienced, it's busy, etc). In my opinion, there is a lack of organizational skills. At the time I walked in yesterday, in the moment, it WAS NOT busy inside the store. There was no line for orders, the place was clean, there wasn't a line of people waiting at the order pick up counter, and the drive thru had about 3 to 4 vehicles if that. The kitchen had about 4 people (6 if you include the manager and employee in front taking orders). The employee up front (not busy) was standing in front of the register prepared to take orders. I ordered JUST DRINKS. I ordered 1 fountain drink and two frozen lemonades. The fountain drink I could get on my own, the lemonades I had to wait to be prepared by kitchen staff. There was two customers ahead of me waiting for food and one customer behind me ordering food. One of the customers ahead of me received their food in a timely fashion while the other customer stood waiting for their food that had been paged out with one of the restaurants pagers. The customer was asked by an employee in the kitchen what they were waiting for and they responded that they had just been paged that their food was ready. The employee seemed like she was going to check on it, but I think she may have gotten distracted because she left the customer waiting for another 10 mins before a second employee approached him asking the same question. In the meantime, I see a third employee asking who's food is just sitting there on the kitchen counter, I am still waiting for for my frozen lemonades, and the the person that ordered behind me is now being called that their food is ready. 5 more mins pass before another employee (manager?) realizes that the food laying on the counter is the food that the customer with the pager in front of me is waiting for. At this time, I feel 15 mins is a ridiculous amount of time to wait for beverages so I go back to the front to wait in line to ask for a refund. I was asked to wait for a manager to get the refund (which took another 5 mins). There is no excuse for such...

I waited about 10 minutes for anyone, someone, to at least greet me, but more importantly help to place my order at the front counter. (I should have just left, but I love Panera in all the cities I visit ) A handful of employees over in the food prep area noticed me right away, but did not alert anyone i was there.(Yes, I could have placed an order on the kiosk in front of me but because I was up there for work I needed a receipt and did not know if I would be able to obtain a paper receipt from the kiosk.) When the empIoyee did come to help place my order she was pleasant. But if she wasnt behind the counter honestly someone else should have been helping watch it. Especially because it was the start of dinner time 5:08 pm. I did get my food fairly quick, but when I went to find a place to sit and eat 99% of the tables were dirty and there were crumbs all over in the carpet. Oddly enough i was the only guest currently eating in. The whole place was empty except the employee on break sleeping in a booth. My silverware felt dirty. I feel llike all Paneras need to update their dishwashers. Whenever i visit Paneras my utensils and plates normally feel grimey. My meal was ok. Some of my fruit in my salad was encased in ice. I had to let it melt before i ate it. By the time I finished my salad there was a pool of water in the bottom of my salad bowl. The drink I got was good. The walls needed a good scrub down. The wall where was I was sitting had food splattered on it. On my way out I noticed how dirty the glass was on the door and windows. This location felt gross. If there was a survey on the bottom of my reciept i would have taken it. I will not revisit...

wish i could leave 0 stars but thats not available. i find it hard to believe the rating these guys have and am starting to lose faith in that rating system lately since it doesn't seem to pair up with reality very well. been to poorly rated places that are awesome and then fairly highly rated places such as this that are either totally average or even way below. i used to be a panera fan when we lived in another state but this location ( or maybe the entire chain now) has horrible service, and questionable employees working there. you know its bad when our entire family of 5 has agreed to never go there again. constantly getting our orders wrong the last 4 times we've been there. we tried to give them a few chances but realize its hopeless at this point. the food wasn't necessarily that bad itself but consistently screwing up each member of our family's order time after time is ridiculous. one of my daughters also found a hair in her sandwich. and to top it off, i once called to complain to the manager and they said they would send us a gift card as compensation but they never even did that. sorry panera, you've lost at least one entire family for good and we went there fairly regularly. i am starting to hate big chains anyhow since they have been unfairly allowed to be open while all small mom and pops are shut down so i'll probably start frequenting small local places again once they...