Panera Bread — Restaurant in Norfolk

Unfortunately I eat at this Panera location more than I prefer because it's so close to my work. I have a poor experience every single time I go, and I swear I'll never return, but within a week I foolishly return. There is never a person at the register so you have to wait several minutes before someone will come take your order. In the meantime countless employees will walk by the register doing other tasks, without even acknowledging the waiting customer. This isn't an isolated incident, it happens 75% of the times I visit. Orders are frequently incorrect or served incomplete and the employees are generally very rude.

Today was one of the worst experiences, so I finally felt motivated to leave a review, and I absolutely will not return to this location, or perhaps any Panera again. As usual, there was nobody to take my order. The manager (I assume) stood behind the counter counting bagels, but didn't acknowledge me. There was an employee sweeping the floor in front of the register, and I asked her to take my order. She replied that she couldn't. Finally an employee comes to the register and she is coughing, snotting, and phlegming all over the place and into her bare hands. We're in the middle of the worst flu epidemic in recent memory and the front person for this restaurant has the flu dripping out of her ears. I order a plain bagel, and ask that the bagel be sliced in the middle (like a normal bagel) because normally the carelessly throw the bagel in the slicer and it comes out cut diagonally so that one end of the bagel is 2 inches thick and the other end is paper thin. She tells me they're out of cream cheese (which ended up being incorrect). There are no other customers ordering, and there are no other pending orders, and it took nearly 10 minutes to start making the bagel. Then I had to listen to the kitchen worker go on a 2 minute rant about my "special" request to for slicing the bagel. Apparently he didn't think I could hear him. He even told the flu girl that I would have to come back and slice myself if I wanted it done special. At this point I start walking behind the counter to just grab my plain bagel I've already paid for and leave. Someone from the kitchen saw this and informed me that I couldn't do that. So what happens? Flu girl grabs my bagel with her snotty ass hands and takes it back to be toasted and sliced, approx. 8 minutes after I ordered, and she hadn't taken any other customers in the meantime.

As this point I just left the store, and considered the $2 a lost cause and money well spent to ensure myself never to return to this Panera, and also ensure I didn't eat...

I went to this location last night, it was my first time ever eating at Panera Bread. I get there and it was relatively empty no lines at all. I waited for 5-10 minutes as several employees walked back and forth looking at me as I wait to have my order taken. When I was able to order, I asked the young man what he would recommend being that it was my first time eating there. He said he loved the Frontega Chicken sandwich. So I decided to get the sandwich along with a cup of Bistro Onion Soup because of the pick 2 deal they have. I then order their Papaya Green Tea for a friend and a Mango smoothie for myself. I went to sit down while I waited for my name to be called maybe 7 minutes give or take. When I was called the young man, different from the one who took my order, informed me that they were out of the mango puree. I was hesitant about picking a different smoothie due to food allergies. I asked him if he could tell me what was in the Super Fruit Smoothie and he said he had no clue and didn't make an attempt to ask someone who may possibly know what was in in the drink. Instead to be on the safe side I told him id have a plain strawberry smoothie alerting him not to put bananas in the smoothie because of my allergy he nodded and proceeded to make my smoothie. I thank him and leave. I'm now in the car with my friend and I had a gut feeling not to drink the smoothie and ask my friend to taste it first because even if I smell it id have a reaction to it. She said she tasted bananas but wasn't sure so I sniffed it to see if i could smell it but all I could smell was the rich greek yogurt that was used. Needless to say we made our way back to Panera to have a remake. I get there and express to Ellen the cashier that I believed there was bananas in my smoothie and that I was deathly allergic to them and she quickly reacted telling me to throw it away and that she'll make me a new smoothie. As the smoothie is being made the guy who made my first smoothie is peeking around the corner like he knew what he had did.I still indeed had a reaction to the previous smoothie, which anyone with severe allergies can attest to, that small window you have to get your Epi pen or Benadryl is scary. Luckily I'm okay. I probably won't return to this location again. The worst...

If I could give 0 starts I would. Placed a $30 order for delivery online to get sent to our office building. When the order arrived we questioned if we had everything because the bags seems a little small for $30 worth of food. The driver said yes, they checked it. When we brought the food upstairs of course, stuff was missing. We called the Customer Support line on the Panera website and was told by the person who answered that she would call the store and to hold on the line (why we even had to go through a customer service line for this, I have no clue). Then the customer service lady said that she could not get through and she would just give us the number to call and we could keep trying. Great customer service, right? We called the Customer Service number back and this time the Customer Service Rep apologized and said that we shouldn't have been told just to keep calling. She then called and was able to talk to the manager who said that they were preparing the rest of our missing food for us now and had a driver waiting and ready to go. She said that the manager told her that the reason we were not able to get through was that they turned their phone ringer down so they couldn't hear it ringing. Over an hour later (we only work 5 min up the road) the food still hadn't shown up so we called back and were told the driver was on the way. When the driver finally showed up we received 3 free cookies for our trouble...not worth it. Nobody wants the cookies, they want the food they ordered. The manager then said that for the horrible experience she would refund our money. We just checked the account and instead of refunding us the $30, they charged us again for $30. We even called and confirmed there was another charge made, NOT a credit. So in summary, not only will your order be missing things you paid for, you will not get them in time to even eat them because you will have probably already gone and got something else, but you also may be charged double. Nowhere near worth it and this Panera needs to get it's head out of it's you know where if they think that anybody from office of over 800 people will continue to...