Panera Bread — Restaurant in Lansing

Visited Saturday night, 25th of Nov. Gave order of soup and asked if they still had sprouted grain rolls for the side option that goes with the soup. The cashier taking order was confused, but then said that they had some. Ordered coffee. My sister got soup and iced cappucino.Food came up fast, again confused what the side was supposed to be. Is it a bagel? At this point I would just be happy with baguette. The cashier stepped over to explain. I didn't want anything special, just a side choice. They gave me my order. They have been very polite, I'm still happy too, yay I have always loved Panara. Things go south now. 3 tries to get coffee, roll is so dry and stale it's crumbling like a crouton, a crunchy crouton. I've had it many times before, so I know how it is supposed to be.. Soup is very good. Coffee is so strong its undrjnkable. I'm a huge coffee fan. I drink all kinds, 100% columbian is my go to, so I know coffee that has been brewed improperly. This is practically syrup. My sister's iced coffee has no coffee in it. It's been made with water and milk. Cashier says it's the new guy making it. They fix her a new one , oh, she also has a crouton roll. She goes to use the restroom, door locked. She thinks someone is using it. Returns to table. She tries again ,door locked, finds an employee who gives her the code to get in. Customers have to let staff know they need to use the bathroom??? Wow. My turn to go. I get code from my sister and enter a very dirty bathroom. I wanted to let staff know about the issues. I would have been polite about it . Well I couldn't see any employees. So we left. First time Panara has disappointed us. We were actually laughing that this visit was, what do you even call it? I hope the whole chain is not taking a dive as this location did. My bowl of soup, coffee and roll was $14.00. They never mentioned the side roll, er, crouton was an extra charge of .99 cents. Thought management...

I recently stopped in to the Panera Bread in Frandor. I was looking for a afternoon meal, quick and not McDonalds/Wendy’s... I’ve eaten many a “Choose Two” combos from many different Panera locations.. usually consistent, quality soup and sandwich. This trip was a nightmare. No one behind counter so I used the kiosk, or tried to. It offered me a coffee membership, which I thought would be easy first step in placing my order... Wasn’t!! I hunted down an employee from far end of restaurant who said he’d take order verbally. Ordered the choose two on sign behind him.. Chicken Noodle soup and grilled cheese type sandwich and coffee. He then quickly disappeared and when he did return he handed me my meal sans coffee which I quickly rectified. Taking my dinner to my car I realized, no silverware, so I went back inside and got silverware. So I open my “ soup” and found only broth. I’m now tired of ordeal and see 3 or 4 others in line now so I proceed to enjoy my broth! Then to the main course, which was a grilled cheese with bacon I think... only it WASNT grilled. Only heated. Zero browning!! Slightly warm.. Having tasks to perform before ending my day I left, enjoying my broth and lukewarm sandwich ( I’m really NOT hard to please foodwise). A day or two later I get an email advertisement with an offer to sign up for coffee club and a pic of same meal I had bought just prior. It dredged up my ire,so I called and after waiting to speak with “manager “ I expressed my frustration to the uninterested and obviously distracted dimwit. She offered to send me a “coupon “ for a lunch. I doubted I would ever see it and it’s going on 3 weeks now with no coupon in sight. I have driven past and seen advertisements for them and for milliseconds considered a return until my recent substandard visit is remembered. I won’t be...

We stopped by Panera Bread in Frandor today to grab lunch on the way home. At the time it didn't seem too busy but there were a few people in line waiting for food so we placed our order and grabbed a table. We literally waited 55 minutes for our food, and by then there was a fairly large crowd standing around waiting for food, all fairly hungry and frustrated at the slow service. At their speediest they were churning out one order every 3 minutes, but lots of times it was slower than that. Many people were requesting refunds. And it didn't seem like the orders were going in order, so even though we were listed as 5th in line, multiple orders were getting done before ours, which is weird mainly because we had a small order so it should have been pretty easy to fill. Also by the time we received the order it was lukewarm so by the time we got home the food was cold.

As we were grabbing our food a lady stepped up to the counter because she had gotten her food and was missing the drink, and the counter staff and food staff had a lengthy conversation as to who should give her a cup. At that point with that many people in line you should just grab a cup and hand it over as fast as possible, but they were still talking about it while we grabbed out food and walked away, so at least 30 seconds. If everything moved at that speed it is no wonder it is taking so long to complete orders.

The only reason I gave two stars is because the order was surprisingly correct and the sandwiches are decently made. They are cold (and they were grilled so they shouldn't be) but this location has regularly gotten our orders wrong in one way or another, so they at least got that part down. But waiting 55 minutes for food is unacceptable - I was late back to work. Honestly not ever going back to this...