Panera Bread — Restaurant in New Orleans

Yesterday, Thur., April 11, 2024, at about 6:30 p.m., I was at Panera with my sister eating when the fire alarms went off. It was a false alarm. The alarm sound was ear-piercing, the decibel level so high that it caused ear damage to everyone whether they know it or not. My sister walks with a crutch. We are seniors. The sound was so loud and piercing we had to leave our food and books on the table, my sister hobbling out under duress. For well over an hour the alarm stayed on with the piercing, ear damaging alarm sound on even after the fire department came. I observed young employees being traumatized by the sound but they had to stay. The manager seemed utterly clueless and seemed to be running around in circles and never took control of the situation, never communicated, never did anything at all. Never did I see or smell smoke. It was mind boggling that the alarm was not cut off early on when it showed itself to be a false alarm. This was very disruptive and injurious to customers and employees. It wrecked havoc on my sister and I's nervous systems as we waited outside for the alarm to be turned off so that we could go back in and get our food and books. But the alarm kept its piercing, injurious sound non-stop, non-stop, non-stop. Finally, we couldn't keep waiting any more and had to go back in and further injure our ears and get our food and books, my sister hobbling on her crutch. Customers came and then fled. The incident was handled so badly. Even the firemen were running around but couldn't turn off the alarm. Finally they did but it took an unacceptable amount of time - well over an hour. It was a display of inefficiency to an astounding degree by all and Panera should be held responsible for the decimal damage they caused and the stress and disrespect to both customer and employees. Panera management kept many employees inside when clearly it was doing severe decibel damage to their ears. It was Panera management abuse of employees through total disregard for their well-being. It was very, very stressful. I won't be going back. But more needs to happen to hold them...

This is honest to God the worst Panera location I have ever been to. I used to go to this was because it was less than 5 minutes away from me but frankly, i’d rather take the 20 minute drive to Metairie just to make sure that I am getting everything I ordered, with everything on it. Every single time I’ve ordered from this restaurant it has been wrong or included an unsanitary foreign object (such as PAPER in my sandwich). The last time I picked up food here I waited approximately 10 minutes for my food to be ready after it was supposedly done. I finally went to ask where my food was and they had it sitting in the back the entire time. Not only that, it was missing 2 ENTREES and 2 sides. out of the 6 items ordered i received 2. I asked to speak with the manager regarding training their expo (as their one true job is to make sure food is up to standard and correct) she then informed me that SHE was on expo along with another employee. This means that all these mistakes are flowing through two pairs of hands AFTER being made. As a manager, you can tell she does not take her job seriously. As I mentioned training the employees thoroughly, the manager began raising her voice with me, refused to give her name and told me to leave after spitting unnecessary remarks. This is the rudest most miserable group of people I have ever seen. Eat here if you want to choke on paper or get sick from the lack of gloves & sanitation. Oh or if you’re in the mood to get belittled by the manager for caring more about her store than she does! I truly hope someone from corporate or an owner steps in and does something before this place gets shut down. I also STRONGLY advise looking at their previous health inspections as I will be putting in a request for one. Zero stars & a literal restraining order...

Let me start by saying I'm a food service worker and I'm very understanding when it comes to expectations.

But this Panera has consistently gone downhill in the recent years.

While trying to decide, the cashiers were rushing me to order, there wasn't a line. Then when I did go to order the cashier ignored me and walked away without saying anything. The other cashier was confused but took my order, it was a normal pleasant interaction.

I went to find a table but most of the tables were dirty and there was trash all over the floors. Especially in the pandemic is harder to feel comfortable knowing the tables aren't being wiped down, but I sat and patiently waited for my food. While waiting I heard the kitchen yelling and complaining about orders and tickets right in front of the customers waiting for that food. As a whole the staff seems pretty unprofessional; sure complaining about customers is part of working in a restaurant, but at least do it in a way where the entire cafe doesn't hear you.

The quality of the food has also decreased, there were a couple bad pieces of fruit in my fruit cup and some lettuce was wilted in my salad. I only got a 1 ounce container of dressing with my salad which left most of it bare making it more obvious it wasn't fresh.

My final and probably biggest complaint is the amount of plastic used for my dine in order, 11 pieces of single use plastic for one person. If I wanted to use plastic cutlery I would've gotten takeout. It seems lazy and completely disregards our current climate and trash situation to use so much plastic unnecessarily.

For $15 I could've gone nearly anywhere else and had a better experience and probably will next time.

The couple professional interactions I did have today made this...