Panera Bread — Restaurant in Montclair

My sister wanted to stop and get something to eat and Panera was on the way so we stopped. She mentioned something about a delicious broccoli and cheddar cheese soup served in a bowl made of bread and since it was a little cool I felt like soup kind of sounded good for the first time it this winter. We went inside and I immediately noticed the cafeteria like ambience and the counter of baked mostly breads that you encounter to wait on line to place order with cashier. It was a little unclear weather there was table service available but most people seem to be ordering at this counter and going to next counter to pick up. Bottom line is we ordered two of these cheddar broccoli bread bowls as well as 2 steak Panera Bread sandwiches. Two soups two sandwiches and two soft drinks came out to about $47. Wow but we paid and went over to the pick-up counter where we were told we could not pick up food there. The cashier had neglected to give us one of those little beepers you put on your table so they can find you when your food is ready so they gave us one of those and move this along to the self-serve soft drink stand. If this review is taking a long time then multiply that by 88 or more 2 get the total amount of time it took us to finally get our food. First of all the cashier and tried to keep an extra $45 from us and now we were waiting for our food that was delivered as two bowls of soup in ceramic bowls and two tiny half sandwiches with almost no meat on them at all nor anything else just tiny little children sandwiches really. We asked if these were the full sandwiches we had ordered and they ask for a receipt and saw that they only delivered us each half of a sandwich. And of course we pointed out the missing bread bowls. Well this took very very long. I said to the girl no problem we will eat these half sandwiches just have them make us the other half we will be here eating and you can deliver it then. For no clear reason you said no I better take them back took both of our half sandwiches away and just left us with our soup. We did not see her for another 10 to 15 minutes. We ate our soup which was pretty good but nothing special certainly not and were completely finished with it when she arrived with the so-called full sandwiches for each of us. We did not get any grief to the nice girl who was serving us since none of this was her fault although she could have been a little brighter and left us they have sandwiches in the first place. We asked to speak to the manager who was a very nice young man of about 21 and he was extremely polite and apologetic and said okay I'll be back in a little bit to see what I can do for you. It obviously seemed like although he was the manager on duty he needed all kinds of permission to do anything. So F we had been there already for 45 or 50 minutes and thank him for his kind of demeanor but said we will need to be going very soon. as we were walking out the young man came and gave us to $15 gift certificates that we're good for a specific sandwich. I am in no rush to ever go back to any Panera Bread so I told my sister to enjoy them. they got 1 star because of the polite young manager who earnestly listened and tried to help and they did have tables and chairs...

An AWFUL CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE. I went there yesterday and ordered real roasted Turkey w/avocado, lettuce, tomato & mayo. I go to my vehicle to eat a little bit. To my dismay, there was not one piece of Turkey in my sandwich. I was not about to eat a vegetable sandwich. I’m glad I did not wait until I got home to eat. I went back into the store & told the cashier what transpired. She told me Turkey is on it without even checking the sandwich for herself! I opened it and asked where is it?!. She said she didn’t see the sandwich. She then proceeds to tell the crew to make another because there’s no Turkey in the sandwich. They make another one. In the meantime, I ask what can I have for this inconvenience in which she was supposed to offer, but did not. The cashier tells me I can have a pastry of which I found none appealing. I chose a choc chip cookie which wasn’t great..

The new sandwich has now been made. This one is more bulky. I go to the table to start eating to only find crumbs of Turkey pieces & a piece here and there. I’m still dissatisfied and tried not to go back to the counter, but I did. THIS IS A $14 sandwich. I ask for the manager in which I was already speaking to and she was the one who made the second sandwich. I explained the earlier situation& current situation. She said the Turkey portions are measured by company policy. I was LIVID! I don’t know if it’s that location or if PANERA’s cheating it’s customers. I had no choice but to eat it, because I was sick & hungry. I will not go to that location again. Also there was not one word of apology from the cashier NOR...

My daughter and I went to the Panera here, but when we supposed to get her lemonade, a worker was taking the lemonade because the machine wasn’t working. And we were told that we had to wait in order to get the lemonade, so we wait, and wait, and wait. Until I asked, “how long we have to wait more?” And she said we had to wait, until she finished cleaning, and she left some of the lemonade so my daughter can take some, and the cup wasn’t even halfway!! So I asked, “I need more, I need to fill up my cup.” And then she said we have to wait again. (We waited like more than 10 minutes! She was taking her sweet time) Then, she started talking to another customer, and I said “really? Excuse me, I need my lemonade.” And she said again I have to wait, so I went to the front, and I asked the cashier, what can I do in order to get my lemonade. Because the lady was taking forever and was rude! And she said they couldn’t help me because the rude lady was the manager. So, just because IM SPANISH, THEY TREAT ME LIKE THAT? I have that treatment??? You have to do better Panera, and train your people, because customers are first. ALWAYS! And they have to be nice to the customers! Bad service, I AM...