Panera Bread — Restaurant in La Mesa

I havr been to a couple of different Panera Bread locations across the state. I travel for work and live in La Mesa so I decided to finally try the local Panera in my hood (so to speak) Maybe I had high expectations but I have never had a more terrible sandwhich then what I had tonight and the store was a complete disaster. It wasn't busy maybe 10 other people in the restaurant. There were dirty dishes everywhere. Split beverages on seat cushions. It was disgusting but I stuck it out and decided to order. Perhaps someone called in sick. I had my family with me and it took a while for us to order. This process is usually quick and efficient but the guy helping us was making it way too complicated and so it went. We searched for a clean booth to accommodate everyone and never found one. Despite several employees wandering around I ended up cleaning the table myself. It took 25 minutes to get our food. Yes I timed it because at this point I knew the experience overall was not going to be a good one. Our food was delivered by a disheveled angry white guy who looked like he truly hated his job. He plopped everything down in less then 10 seconds all the while asking us if everything is alright with our meal before we have even seen it. Then by the time we figure out whos is whos he is gone and never bothers to return to us to ask if there was anything we needed. Mind you this entire time I think a total of 12 people came into the restaurant and all the dirty tables around us remained as they were. Dirty. The food was absolutely terrible. The portions were small and the preparation was sloppy and inconsistent. Some of us got mayo others didnt despite ordering the same sandwich. They were out of most of their breads despite it being 6 PM. They didnt have sprouts. My turkey looked like the canned chicken or turkey you use for salads. My guacamole was brown. It was just bad and stayed that way. We cleared our own table and left without ever seeing or engaging with an employee. Oh but the blood orange lemonade was...

Just don't do it. Every time I've been here, the service is so, so slow. Will you take you half an hour to order something to go. On top of that, the place is not clean and that is just what we can see as customers, so can't even imagine what the rest looks like. Very poorly run.

Most recent example, we came today and there was ONE person working the registers at LUNCH (while also having to run loafs of bread through the slicer and other non-register tasks) - we sat in the same spot in line for 10 minutes with 5 people ahead of us. There is a lot of elderly clientele at this location so it takes even longer (this is not a bad thing by any means, just stating the facts as it should be taken to account by the person running this business). Panera should KNOW this and have more than one person at the register at their busiest hour! This is on par with every other experience I have had here. I was with someone ordering food or would have left if it was just me.

On top of that, the tables and seats/booth benches were absolutely filthy. Crumbs and gross streaky stuff at every single table except for one, which we grabbed, and even that was not clean. Again - this is what they show to the public, so imagine how it is managed...

The worst customer service I have ever received at a Panera I've been to panera's on the East coast West coast all up and down California and today I went with my cousin who just got married to this location and we place an order one for a steak sandwich and the other for chicken sandwich and other items as well and when my cousin opened her sandwich there were three shavings of steak and so when she went to the front to ask why this is so and if they could just add more she was told that it is more expensive so they will charge more to add more steak but there wasn't much to begin with in the first place there was more bread than steak.and so she did not want to pay the extra money for something that should have been there in the first place. That was the first incident the second incident in the same day occurred when I asked for a to-go box or a container for my sandwich and instead of a container for my sandwich I was given paper not a paper bag not a container I've seen the little containers that the sandwiches come in and so we paid almost $30 for the entire meal and I was given a piece of paper for my sandwich to go I will never be returning I will go to another location the next time I'm...