Panera Bread — Restaurant in Germantown

Today I pre-ordered a breakfast sandwich at this store. This is not the store I normally visit however I wanted to try the cinnamon sandwich with egg and cheese. I called the store and spoke with Hannah. She was kind but a little unknowledgeable about how I can get a receipt for my order she took over the telephone with my card. She mentioned that when I came into the store to ask for her. I arrived 5 minutes before 11 am however I called the store at 10:12 am to place my order. When I walked into the store no one greeted me. I went to the counter where the people work on orders and this is when I met Dino. I said, "excuse me sir, is Hannah here"? I did not see my order on the rack with the other pick up orders and I was following the instructions that Hannah said to me earlier about asking for her when I arrived at the store. Dino replied, "why do you want to want to speak with Hannah she is a minor?" This is when the conversation went bad. I mentioned that his response to me was not warranted nor needed. After explaining the situation he gave me an insincere apology but felt comfortable being rude and aggressive towards me. Hannah comes over to give me my order. She was kind but I checked my sandwich before leaving the store to make sure that it was correct and I found out it wasn't. Hannah said that she mentioned to the staff to not add sausage on the sandwich. By this time I was annoyed at how Dino spoke to me. He comes over to where me and Hannah are and still possessed his nasty, passive aggressive, biases attitude towards me. He made me feel uncomfortable and unwanted in the store. He gave me a cash refund and a beverage for my inconvenience. I told him that I had a call that I needed to take and he told me that he would remake the sandwich without the sausage for my inconvenience. When I came back into the store to retrieve my sandwich, Dino had a smirk on his face and told me that I misunderstood. Since he refunded me for the sandwich that was not made incorrectly and gave me a cup for my beverage, he thought we were good. While talking to Dino, he talked over me and would not listen to me. He identified himself as the manager and general manager of the store/cafe. I told him that he could keep the cup for the beverage and I left the store. When I left, I called the corporate customer service number to file a complaint. I was told that since that this store/cafe was a franchise then they would not do anything to help me. Basically I wasted my time filing a formal complaint.

Dino, your managerial skills are deplorable and your attitude is NASTY. You are biased and mean-spirited. You cause a hostile interaction when there was no need. I will not ever visit this store ever again and will not ever recommend it to anyone I know.

If I could rate you "zero stars" I would. This experience was memorable for all of the...

WHY I CHANGED FROM 4 STARS: I'm sad to say I stopped going to this one about a year ago, and now drive to one a few miles down the road. Some staff were terrific (hence the 2 vs 0 stars), but there was an increasingly disturbing atmosphere that in my opinion, inhibited their efforts to do a good job. And some things, I can see, would be hard for staff to deal with: A big problem - small groups of poorly mannered teenagers would lounge around for hours, get a bit loud etc...not so big a deal? but twice I looked up from my salad to find young couples a few tables away, close to, or actually going at it - yes, in the middle of the place, and during times when folks were coming in with small kids etc.; and in each case, the girl looked so embarrassed herself, which was just sad. Once, a few of these winners attacked a kid outside for his sneakers; staff were great in helping the kid and calling the ambulance, but they shouldn't have to deal with that, right? Not surprisingly, staff sometimes have trouble keeping up with clearing of tables when the bunch plunks down. And the bathrooms. ...my God..Off and on, management put coded locks on the door (one staffer told me, 'You don't want to know why'); and too often, the bathroom was grungy and sometimes outright filthy, but then I'm not sure I'd expect there to be a full-time attendant for 2 stalls due to inconsiderate customers. A last item, since I hope by now the atmosphere has improved? was that the quality control seemed to get kind of lax at times. Chicken salad might be pretty stingily scraped onto the sandwich bread, chicken for chicken cobb salad was...

You can find your usual Panera fare here with the mellow andcozy atmosphere of that is the (usual) Panera norm. With free wi-fi, nice seating, tables , electical outlets, booths and gas fireplaces. Be aware that it’s next to a major county bus station (which partly is government working commuters who use the park and ride lots, so try your luck here.

It may be fine until the after-school, non-customer, foul-mouthed local “students” show up and disrupt the place with f-bombs about their sleeping through classes, etc. Expext rap on iphones played aloud. Don’t try the local library nearby for relief- a librarian was assualted in the last year. With more upscale housing soon coming down the street, there’s a chance this location (across the street from a police station) will get some decorum evwntually, just from a demographic shift.

But themanager has to do more in afternoons to remind these “kids” that the seats are for paying customers only. Big demerit on this aspect. Thumbs down, sorry. Drank my coffee and unplugged the laptop (3rd visit in last year) and gave up and left. Iphones and “everything goes” vulgarity are destroying public civility in an otherwise nice...