Panera Bread — Restaurant in Fort Lauderdale

I have never witnessed so much complete incompetence in a single location. Ideally, I would like to place my order online but due to limitations regarding modifications that is not possible. It used to be! But now it appears that everyone is paying someone else to manage carry out orders on their sites and that’s not working. So I have to call. It is always so ridiculously time-consuming at this location nearest my house and after yesterday, I will definitely never go to this location again.

The initial call took 13 minutes! That is how long it took Initial Incompetent Employee to ring up an order that included two bowls of cream of chicken and wild rice soup; a tuna salad sandwich with chips and extra pickles; 1 pepsi and a kitchen sink cookie. 13 minutes!! Now I am accustomed to this because I eat at Panera regularly and this is ALWAYS the case. You have to speak very very very slowly and repeat everything many many times. Mind you, this is NOT because of ESL. I’m regularly told things like “you can’t change the bread“ or “there is not a button for that“ when I ask to do something like add red onions to a sandwich. And extra pickles literally involves the assistance of “a manager”.🤦🏽‍♀️. Yesterday, Pickle Gate was next level. First I was told it is not possible. I insisted that it is in fact possible and that I’m happy to pay extra if necessary. A manager is allegedly consulted who says that there is an up charge of two dollars for extra pickles. I point out that although this has never been the case at any Panera ever it is fine and I agree to these terms. 👍

So my husband goes to pick it up and he is also accustomed to this incompetence and knows to double check everything and that he will likely have to wait even though we call it in in advance to avoid that.

The order they finally present him with does not include the Pepsi or the pickles. Neither of which were even rung up or included on the receipt, even after the extensive conversation about it and required consultation with management 🤷🏻‍♀️. So he waits longer.

Only when he gets home do we realize that the two bowls of soup that make it to the order are the wrong kind of soup. Instead of the one cookie we ordered there are three separate cookies, All of which are hard, seem many days old and tasted like maple syrup (As opposed to chocolate chip with caramel and sea salt)- into the trash they go. The tuna sandwich was actually correct 👍

It’s absolutely mind blowing to me that you can invest over 30 minutes into what should be a simple exchange, spend $40 and end up with basically nothing that you want. So I call the manager. I believe her name is Drea.

Drea is the complete opposite of everything a manager should be. I’m actually questioning if she’s even an adult because she certainly does not behave like one. She is completely defensive from the beginning, interrupts me repeatedly at approximately every second word and instead of being shocked, embarrassed, apologetic, etc. is saying things like “you’re gonna need to bring that back in here so I can verify what you’re saying”. After WAY too much back and forth, Drea offered to give us a free cup of soup for all of the inconvenience. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 Not even a bowl, mind you, even though that is what we purchase every single time.

I am hoping these reviews are seen by actual management and upper echelon so issues can be addressed before Panera is just run completely into the ground. 🙏🙏Looking at all of the other bad reviews it may already be too late,...

This is by far the worst Panera I've ever been to. I gave it one star because zero stars is not possible. Went in to get a to-go order at about 6pm on a Saturday. I was feeling under the weather and thought soup would perk me up.

The order taker was fine, not extremely friendly but not rude either. Well, I guess they got my husband's name wrong. We waited about 20 minutes, finallly fed up my husband went up to the pick up counter.

The guy behind the counter had two name badges "Mike" on his hat and "Fletcher" on his apron. No idea what his name was. Well, this guy was so RUDE. He was yelling "Ronnie" over and over again (which is not my husband's name) My husband politely asked if they had maybe got his name wrong but if it was his order. This D-Bag didn't even let him check the order and told him to "back off"(I am not joking) So we proceeded to wait for about another 15 minutes and now there was a huge line and three other people with my Husband's name (a common R name). So my husband goes up to the pickup place and he double checks the order. Every single thing is wrong in the bag. And he takes it out one by one to show him that this is not the order and then asks again if he could check the bag with "Ronnie" on it.

The manger overhears and comes over, my husband explains the situation. The manager did not listen to my husband, did not acknowledge the problem, correct the employee or have any knowledge of service recovery. My husband was not irate (he could have been). All we were offered was a weak apology for "mixed up tickets" and a cookie from the bakery. It was not a ticket mix up but a hard-headed, stubborn guy who is ill-equipped and should not be serving the public. The manager needs to take some customer and service recovery classes.

Oh and on top of all this, our soup was stone cold and sandwiches soggy. I'll drive to the Bal Harbour Square location where the employees are way nicer even though it's further...

I would give Panera bread no stars but I have to give one just to post a review so Panera you can consider this one star a sympathy reward. It's the worst restaurant I have been to. I ordered a grilled ham and cheese sandwich which was burnt, the bread was like eating crackers with ham and cheese, and french onion soup and asked them to put extra cheese in it. My order came to almost $9.00 which I thought was a little expensive for just a sandwich and soup but I still payed the bill. I was waiting for my food and when my sandwich was done the representative bagged it up. I told her she forgot to put the soup in the bag and she replied that I didn't order any soup which I did and in fact I also asked for extra cheese. She said it would be another $7.00 for the soup. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. They wanted to charge me almost $20 for soup and a sandwich which is completely pathetic considering I could have went to Flannigan's and ordered baby back ribs, salad another side and a drink for the same price and they serve huge plates. Pollo Tropical I could get a whole chicken with rice and beans for 12.99. I will never go back to Panera bread, they charge$20 for a $6 meal. It's sad that they can legally over price a meal that isn't worth the money they charge you. It's no wonder there were no other customers in the store. It's also pathetic that they charge you a huge amount of money for food that isn't worth it but only pay their employees $9 an hour. I would never recommend that anyone...