Panera Bread — Restaurant in Idaho Falls

I wish Panera would stop living in the fantasy that it can be a mix of fast food and quality food. I worked for this location when it first opened, and it turned out to be a little like that experience when you meet your hero and they aren't exactly as great as you had thought while admiring them from a distance.

Before I dive in, if you just want to know if Panera is any good or not, it is. They have good food and are a dedicated company striving for cleaner, better food. I'd recommend them to anyone.

At Panera, they are trying to pull off quality food at a fast food pace. I, like most, worked several fast food jobs in my pre-college time and Panera was the last one I worked at. Here are what I think they are doing right and wrong:

There is no questioning the quality of the ingredients used at Panera. I did a lot of their prep work and experienced first hand that they get produce as fresh as possible, and prepare it for short-term storage and use. What I mean by that is the pineapple in your salad was not purchased in a can and then some guy just poured it into a container for them to toss on your salad. No, it was purchased as a whole pineapple, a person who's job is dedicated to such chopped it himself with a knife, and prepared it for use. It may not have been chopped exactly that day, but they are dedicated to FIFO product storage, and they throw the ingredients away much sooner than you would if it were you at home with it in order to maintain their quality standards. This is really great. It was really good to see their dedication to fresh quality ingredients.

The other thing they are doing very right are the recipes themselves. Panera helped me try foods I otherwise wouldn't have, and introduces you to foods and ingredients you may not be familiar with. This was really refreshing to see that they don't just look to see what's popular and go with the flow. The chefs who make the recipes for Panera are doing something special, and I hope they continue to introduce us to knew and interesting foods.

As for what Panera isn't doing so well, it has nothing to do with the quality of the food itself, but rather the management style. I worked at Jimmy John's for a while and I can tell you they are Freaky Fast for a reason. Everything about their process is designed to be done very, very fast. A single order can have as many as 5 people working on it at the same time, throwing ingredients together, fetching drinks, chips, etc. The sandwiches are designed to have the ingredients ordered in a very specific manner to be as time efficient to make as possible. A par-level Jimmy John's team can prepare a full family meal in in a minute. Under quality leadership, this can be reduced to 50 seconds.

At Panera, the story is different. The food is designed to be pretty, quality food (Jimmy's is quality too, but it's a sandwich, not a hand-tossed salad). The food takes longer to make, and unlike Jimmy's, they offer some foods that require cooking (like pasta and paninis), which take a lot of time to prepare. If someone in the drive thru wants a bakery item, the small team has to have someone abandon their post to run to the other side of the building to go get it. These and many other small details about how they run their drive thru and the rest of the kitchen are why it can be hard to work for such a place, especially since at the end of it all, they have the same expectations for their employees. A meal needs to be ready in under a minute, the same as Jimmy's. Meeting this expectation is unrealistic for a place trying to deliver on quality food. It leads to more mistakes, and sacrifices quality despite their deep levels of quality assurance.

I think if they focused on what they are good at, they could earn a reputation for Olive Garden-level food with shorter lines and a more...

Okay first off the service here is horrible. The blonde girl working yesterday at the front when I came on around 2:35 is rude unprofessional and unaccomadating to guests. We got no welcome when we entered the store, we waiting in line for ten minutes before we could even order. Upon ordering we were told they were out of avocado (there was a sign on the other side of the register that ordering guests can not see. So that was annoying. There was 5-10 workers just standing around in the front of the store talking about cars. Not one of them acknowledged us and none of them were working. After waiting 20 minutes I asked the blonde girl how much longer (it was only three sandwiches) she said not much longer but the people before us were still waiting ?? So our food wasn’t even being made at this point. I let the girl know this is kind of a joke I have been here for 25 minutes now and her response was “yeah well there was other orders ahead of you” okay well if that’s the case why are 5-10 workers just standing around then? No apology or a sorry for the wait time. Our food was wrong for one. The sandwich that was right was the steak and cheese and it tasted very sour to the pint we could not even eat it. For a 9 dollar sandwich that’s annoying. They would not offer any discount or refund for the rude service or long wait or wrong food. They also gave all of our sandwiches in one bag with our bread and when we were walking out of the store the bag ripped and dropped all of our food. The bread wasn’t wrapped or anything so it touched the ground (all three sides of bread) they would not replace that either. I will never come back to this location again and if I don’t get a response I will be...

So much for their "Accuracy Matters" policy... or maybe it was the "let a manager know" part they didn't like. Our pick-up order was missing dressing for our salads. When I drove back to get them, the associate was reluctant to give me the missing dressing. (how odd!) When I asked about the posted sign stating to let them know when an order is wrong, the manager was entirely dismissive and behaved as though I was a bother, or maybe he thought I was ridiculous for asking about their posted policy. Regardless, he said he was busy making a drink, so if I wanted to wait, he would assist me after. I already dove here a 2nd time because of your staff's mistake, wasting my lunch hour, and you want me to wait for you to finish a drink?! Is your staff that incapable, or do you just need an excuse? I wasn't angry, upset or unpleasant; simply asking about their policy because I sacrificed 45 minutes due to their mistake, but that was clearly asking too much. Look - we all make mistakes. That is all good and well. However, when you don't acknowledge the problem, or especially, won't deliver on your standards, THAT is where I have an issue. Panera is in the service industry. I paid for the goods, you didn't deliver. Asking and expecting that you stand by your service and product should be basic. How sad that this dismissive attitude is acceptable at Panera! At least (once we got the less than 1/2 filled dressings) the...