Panera Bread — Restaurant in Lake Saint Louis

There is indeed a new era at Panera -

Options are marginally healthier than fast food. Panera has suddenly developed an aversion to spinach for some reason (I could no longer find a single offering with spinach in it). My former fav breakfast sandwich - Spinach, Avocado, and Egg White Sandwich - has been demoted to Garden Avo. WAY more bread than fixings with two slices of tomato, folded egg white, cheese, and just enough avocado to fit under my thumbnail.

My other breakfast favorite is Steel Cut Oatmeal - which Panera still has, and I like to pair it with a croissant, but nope. This bread company does not serve croissants anymore (which sounds a bit oxymoronic). For a croissant, I have to go to Starbucks of all places. I suppose, like all of my other favorites, I should expect Steel Cut Oatmeal to be removed too.

My guess is, some focus group told Panera how to improve and Panera took action on it. Unfortunately focus groups can be terribly misleading (just ask Ford Motor Company about the Edsel, or McDonald's about its Steakhouse Buger). So Panera is slowly falling from fast casual to just fast and losing its identity in the process.

Sadly at 7am, this location I'm in is filthy. I would have assumed the floor would have been vacuumed last night but it clearly has not been. Every table has food on the floor - though the tables themselves are somewhat clean. On booth in particular literally has food piled up so high in the crevice between the seat cusion and back cushion that it looks like part of the

Staff are very nice even as they are in a hurry to get the next order out. Perhaps the challenges I see are a result of understaffing. I don't know.

I really like Panera, aka The St. Louis Bread Company, but it appears our...

I’ve been going to this bread co for years. For the most part, it’s been an absolute delight. However recently, things haven’t been going as smooth as I’d hope. For one, the service and wait time for my food has gotten so slow, I’ve been able to grow a full beard in the time I’m waiting for my lunch. Now, as someone that works in the service industry, I can’t fault the employees for this, as I’m not sure whether or not any rules, regulations, or procedures have changed. That being said, whatever has been changed rivals with Franklin the Turtle in terms of speed and efficiency.

On another note, the staff is genuinely the highlight of my day as they are always so friendly and helpful with any questions or requests I have. That being said, I’ve recently started noticing an individual lurking around that kind of creeps me out. Now, I haven’t had the displeasure of interacting with this said individual but I have noticed how he just stands places, similar to Michael Myers, and stares in an odd way at other employees. Along with that, these employees normally seem to be younger women, and it’s frankly just an unsettling sight to see when all of the employees I interact with are so friendly and personable. Now I don’t know this individual personally, but from an outside view as a customer, watching an older man stare at and follow around younger women is an eerie sight to see in environment so personable...

It only keeps getting worse, I feel I have been very understanding with all the hurdles companies have gone through during this crazy time but come on. The LSL location is always closed or out of everything. Today I went to get my wife bread co because that’s what she wanted. Waited in drive through for 10+ minutes to order and they where out of 3/4 of the items I wanted. I placed the best order I could piece together. Got to the window and paid $18 for not much and Not so good of service. I asked the young girl for 2 small cream cheese, sure that will be $3. I was like serious you can’t just give me to since you were out of 3/4 of the items that I ordered and then another lady came up behind her and said why are you getting mad at a teenager you have to call corporate we can’t just give you free food. I was not asking for free food I was asking you to give me a small cream cheese since I frequent here quite a bit and spend a lot of money and majority of the time you were out of everything. People don’t understand Customer service or using common sense I don’t think I was asking for anything...