Panera Bread — Restaurant in Escondido

All bad. Let's start with the sub par order we placed for rapid pickup.

Soup: We ordered soup advertised to be for 4 people. We received 2 cups of soup with a loaf of bread so false advertising on the portions. They were also out of the soup we ordered and our hot sandwiches went cold waiting for the replacement. Sandwiches: Both sorely lacking substance. There was nearly nothing between the bread for either. Grilled Cheese: Ordered a full sandwich and only received half. Sorely lacking cheese. The bread was cold and chewy. The sandwich was not grilled or toasted. I'm convinced it was heated in the microwave based on the texture. Caprese: Consisted of bread soggy with balsamic, one sliced cherry tomato, two basil leaves, and what appeared to be shredded mozzarella.

Now let's get into the customer service. I should start with the staff was wonderful, it was the manager who should be ashamed of himself.

So it was my wife who went and picked up the order because she's awesome and I wasn't feeling well. I was disturbed to hear her story when she got back. Upon pickup there was a note saying to see the manager. When she did she was notified that they were out of the selected soup and she chose another. She tried to notify him of the missing half sandwich and without letting her finish her sentence the manager turned and walked away. The staff noticed this and fixed it straight away while the manager was in the back. The manager returned with the subbed soup and walked away. After a couple minutes waiting for the other half grilled cheese the guy shouts snarkily across the restaurant "What? Are you waiting for something else?".

So, after all this we returned our order only to find the manager having a completely different tone seemingly because I went with. It's pathetic that you need a big strong man with you to be treated with general courtesy at this Panera. To ice this cake, since we ordered online for pickup the guy couldn't process our refund through the cash register. We were assured that the refund for the returned food would be issued the same day once the online system closed for the day. This happened on Sunday, now it's Tuesday and we still haven't gotten our money back for this (it doesn't look like I'll be getting my money back at all at this point). We nearly left without our bank card because the manager pocketed it after trying to issue the refund at the register.

In summary, this experience was garbage and I'm quite unhappy with the products and services or lack there of that this...

I ordered a Whole (Full size) Caesar Salad, when the called my name to pick it up it looked a bit skimpy, like maybe they forgot to add enough lettuce. I mentioned to the staff that I had ordered the “Whole” Caesar Salad and it looked maybe like a half size, didn’t even fill out the bowl. The guy said it was correct, as he “weighed” it, followed by a facial expression that was like “that’s it, sorry dude”.

I brought the skimpy Caesar to my table, in disbelief I just paid $10 for this.

I went back to the staff and asked someone different for an additional bowl, a half sized bowl. I then transferred the Whole Caesar Salad to the Half sized bowl. It fit perfectly, looked correct.

The Half size is priced around $5-6.

The Salad tasted good. But the value just doesn’t seem to be there, like if that’s really all the salad you get for the Full/Whole Caesar, they really should just change their bowls so the presentation is better. Having a giant bowl that looks empty was really frustrating. Having the staff tell me it was correct because they weighed it was frustrating. Not a single staff or manager came by to ask how my food was.

It was a less than poor experience, I’m always reminiscent of the Panera of days gone by and continually disappointed of the serving portions, level of customer service, value and taste.

I ended up going there because I had a “deal” to join their “unlimited sip club” for $3.99/month for 3 months. So I decided to stay for lunch and do a little work (video call).

The environment ended up being so loud between their machines and staff yelling, laughing and goofing off I’ll never end up doing that again. Horrible environment to get any work done.

I’m even thinking the sip club is worth canceling because their “Charged” lemonades had some funky taste.

Panera, don’t get me wrong, I want to love you again. But until then we will only exchange some...

Same as any Panera Bread, good food good service.

Update 4/26/2022 4:00pm: Sadly today was an exception the good service, I tried to order from the kiosk, lost three places in line trying to pay, It wouldn't take my card for some reason, meh, It happens....

I then went to the counter and the employee was talking to a customer who was clearly someone they knew, When the chat session was over I was finally able to order my cup of soup. I waited for my cup of soup at the delivery counter. I noticed that there was an "eat in" order sitting there on the counter. The entire 20 minutes I waited for my cup of soup, that once hot food order sat there on the shelf. The customer that was ahead of me was called to pick up her order and started chatting it up with the food preparers, apparently she knew everyone there. When my order was almost ready they asked me if I needed anything else, I said I don't but the people who ordered this food (I was pointing to the food getting cold on the shelf) probably do. That's when they yelled out, for the first time since I arrived, that this food was ready. They were not busy, there was no reason for my cup of soup to take 20 minutes and no reason someone's hot food to set on the counter all that time waiting to be...