Panera Bread — Restaurant in Erie

I work at a large, busy urgent care here in Erie, PA where we order from local restaurant establishments frequently. Our medical staff here work 14 hour days and are often so busy we don’t get to sit for long and have a meal, so getting a nice lunch we can quickly eat between taking care of sick and injured people is important to keep us going during this busy time. We ordered a multi item order on the app today, one of which was a “you pick 2” with 1/2 a tuna sandwich and a cup of broccoli cheddar soup. The nurse chose a different type of bread and added romaine lettuce and tomato slices. When the order arrived, there was NO TUNA on the tuna sandwich. Seriously? (This has also happened to one of the doctors that works at my office recently, who had the same comment- why would I order tuna with no tuna?) The pick 2 combo is about $15 after tax, and why on earth would someone order a tuna sandwich without tuna on it? (Especially considering that a veggie sandwich is a menu item.) 2 pieces of bread, some romaine lettuce and two SMALL tomato slices is not worth$7.00. When I called the store at the Peach St Erie location to ask for a refund or the sandwich to be re-made, I had someone named Olivia put me on hold so she could talk to a manager, and then come back on the phone and rudely tell me “well you clicked on no tuna when you ordered through the app”. I told her I most certainly would never have ordered a tuna sandwich with no tuna, and there must be some mistake. She again swore, nope, this is my fault and they just made what the ticket said, which is what I selected, and her manager said they would not be refunding me or remaking the sandwich. I explained to her how incredibly absurd this is and asked how they could justify charging $15 for this, she just said “oh well that’s what you chose thru the app.” I asked to speak to her manager, to which she said, “I AM a manager.” I told her if the customer service there is truly this bad, then our office will never be ordering from there ever again. Her response? “Sorry to hear that.”

Since Olivia the manager from Panera on Peach St in Erie has no idea what good customer service looks like, allow me to educate on how she should have handled this. Her response to my issue should’ve sounded something more like: “I’m sorry this happened, and I will happily refund your $7 for the sandwich or make a new on with tuna, but I will only do it this one time, so please be careful when ordering through the app in the future. I’ve heard the app does have some tricky features, to take your time when ordering to make sure it is all exactly as you want it to be.”

We were ordering from Panera quite a bit, and this horrendous customer service is ensuring we will never order from them ever again. Which, by the way, I explained to Miss Olivia, who truly did not care that she is losing frequent customers (who typically place orders that are $50-$100) over a $7 sandwich. See the picture below, this is worth $15? Never again will I order...

First and last visit to this location.

There was a short wait to place our order, but that was made longer when ALL of the cashiers disappeared after the people in front of us ordered, There were 2 couples behind us at the time, but that didn't seem to matter to the cashiers.

The cashier that did come back to the registers managed to take our order with all the personality of a limp lettuce leaf. She did manage to ask us if we wanted the 99 cent pastry, but that was about the only interaction we had. No "hello" or "good afternoon" - just "what do you want". After she gave us the receipt and a coaster to alert us when the order was ready, she turned away and started making a blended something that was not ours, so we went to a table to wait.

The sandwich was served on a warm plate which worked since it was a warm sandwich. The salad my wife ordered was in a lukewarm bowl, which was also on a warmed platter. Not the best temperature for salads.

I asked about the drinks and was told that the cashier handed the cups out, so after placing the food on our table I went and stood at the cash registers. The girl that had such a great personality was still making a blended something and didn't acknowledge me even though she looked back and saw me there. The lady that had told me to get the cups from the cashier came past and got the cups for me.

As we ate a fairly un-Panera quality meal we watched one person spend several minutes sweeping away the bagel crumbs from a counter, and then sweeping away crumbs from another counter. He moved as if he was stuck in molasses, but at least he was doing something. Other people behind the counter were leaning on the counter and chatting with their co-workers, hands in their pockets, looking as if they were customers in a food court rather than employees of Panera. If I had done that in any f the food service jobs I had, I would have been fired, but I guess they don't have time for training at this store.

A black eye location for Panera. I will try Panera again, but NEVER at this location. When I am treated as an interruption, not a customer, I will tell everyone I can reach to STAY AWAY FROM THIS STORE. There are plenty of eateries in this area, and they LIKE to have customers. Sad to find out that Panera does not. But that may explain why all of the other restaurant parking lots were full while Panera had less than a third of their parking...

Buckle up for this one..my daughter and I went for a late lunch on 9/14/23. We both ordered The you pick 2 Chicken Caprese Melt Baguette Sandwich, both with a cup of soup. (One without peppers). We start eating our sandwiches, and realized that there was no CHICKEN on our CHICKEN sandwiches, and neither had peppers. I took them up to the counter, and explained their mistakes. The woman at the pickup counter was not friendly, was annoyed , and acted like it was my fault. She finally said, "your right.’ Never apologized, and told me she would call me when they were ready. What happened next, left me speechless. I watched as they took the sandwiches that we handled, and had eaten some of. They handled them with gloved hands, and used the same gloved hands in the chicken, and pepper containers. I am pretty sure this is against health regulations. As well as completely disgusting. They just slapped the tasteless chicken on the now cold sandwiches. Told me she would call me when they were ready. You would think that they would bring them to us, after their mess up. At this point, we had to leave, and didn’t have time to insist they remake them. It gets better… I filed a complaint with Panera online. In my complaint, I mentioned that I was not offered a half sandwich instead of a whole with "You Pick 2"., as well as my above complaints. I received a response from the General Manager of this location. She only responded that the sandwich we ordered only comes as a whole, not half. She did not even mention, or apologize for not remaking the sandwiches. I would think that the general manager would be very concerned about this. Very suspicious… A quick google search, and what do I discover? The General Manager, was the very woman that took care of me, and directed the employee to add chicken to partially eaten sandwiches. Bottom line is the General Manager is not concerned about food safety. The food is way overpriced, for what you get, and they barely put anything on them. BTW.. this lunch was $36 for only 2 cups of soup, 2 sandwiches. We did not even get any drinks. We could of gone to any number of sit down restaurants, and been waited on for less money. We will no longer be going to...