Panera Bread — Restaurant in East Greenwich

It's 2023 and this place has still not figured out mobile ordering or takeout. Orders are consistently 10-15 minutes late. This is partly due to staff, but also due to the app/website giving incorrect estimates on prep time. EVERYTIME you order it states your order will be ready within 10 minutes. Day/night, busy/slow doesn't matter, it's always 10 minutes. So you order and one of two things happen. One, you show up at the directed time, it is late, and you sit and wait with the other miserable people who are waiting for their food that was supposed to already be done. Or two, you try to plan for the delay and show up 10 minutes late, which are invariably the days where everything is running on time and now you have cold soup.

The problem I have laid out above has existed since the pandemic, so almost 4 years and they still haven't gotten this right. But recently it's gotten worse.

Now the orders are kept behind the counter, preventing you from getting your order when it is in fact ready. You now have to wait in line with other customers looking to order, THUS DEFEATING THE PURPOSE OF ORDERING AHEAD IN THE FIRST PLACE!

It's unfortunate that they need to protect these orders from thieves, but given the circumstances, you expect staff to be aware of the situation and proactively ask people if they are waiting to pick up an order, but alas that is not the case. Today while standing alone in front of the register, multiple employees passed me, multiple times without so much as eye contact. Were they busy doing other things? One woman, I watched walk past me to the pastries, look at them, walk past me again to the sandwich area, watched then being made for a minute, then left, walked past me again, to the back room, after which she quickly returned and completed the entire circuit again two more times, before another employee started walking past and I was able to get their attention and my order.

I can't think of any other restaurant that is this disorganized and failing at the logistics of food service as poorly as this one particular Panera.

*written from my phone, please forgive typos and...

I don’t normally write reviews but this place messed up twice with me. So it’s not a one time deal it’s consistent.

I don’t know who is cooking the food at this place or maintaining the food but they’re doing it wrong.

I first time I went to this location I ordered take out I normally go to the bald hill road location but this was closer and on the way to where I was going so I stopped in.

I got my normal go twos. Large green Tea and creamy wild rice soup.

On looking at the soup I instantly knew something was wrong. First off the soup was yellow and really watery. There was no cream in it at all. Usually it’s white and you can see the specs of wild rice and veg and chicken.

This was more of a chicken soup in the can kind of deal. I was already home when I opened it so I really did not feel like going all the way back to get a refund so I just ate it.

Tea was good, soup was ok but not what I was expecting.

So giving this place the benefit of the doubt thinking maybe they were having an off day or this was a one time deal maybe they ran out of soup or something. I decided to do an online order. I did not pick this restaurant the app did.

But I again ordered my go twos and a Caesar salad.

The Soup was AGAIN EXACTLY THE SAME THING AS I ORDERS IN THE CAFE. Watery yellow soup probably from a can. No rice no chicken. Not creamy at all.

Then I moved on to the Caesar salad. Got a cup of Caesar dressing not even full not even enough to cover any of the lettuce. My first time encountering chewy and stale croutons. Not crunchy, not hard. Just disappointment.

I won’t be ordered from this location again. When you go to Panera Bread it’s a franchise so it should be consistent no matter which location you go to you should know what to expect when you order and get the same product everytime.

This place is consistent with...

I don’t usually write bad reviews .. things happen but the breakfast bundle - 4 breakfast sandwiches is 13.99 .. great. I’ll take 3 home 1 for my husband plus we’ll have one for tomorrow.. So I am charged $17.27. Why? Oh we have to charge 50 cents more for each sandwich now. It has to do with making the sandwich! I am sorry. I can’t do anything about it. The young man just went on and on about it. I just asked a simple question. I just shook my head. Ok , fine but change the sign. Whatever, then the egg isn’t cooked and needless to say one bite and it’s all over my shirt plus the box is covered with dripping egg. I mean my shirt is covered. It started as a good morning to say I am not happy is an understatement. I normally don’t buy a breakfast sandwich but it is a fresh cooked egg not some frozen cardboard egg but my plan wasn’t to wear it. Disgusting. The girl said, I am sorry it took so long. There was no one in front of me. Ok, so if it took longer I would expect a cooked egg. Thank god I had a sweatshirt to put on and zip all the way up. This was maybe 8:15 am . I hope this isn’t a sign for the rest of my day. 🤦‍♀️ I was gonna show a picture but couldn’t find a way to post it. 10/8/22 I notice no one comments back on these reviews I wonder if...