Panera Bread — Restaurant in Pflugerville

Severely disappointed with my first ever visit to a Panera Bread.

The store smelled funny when we walked in, not appetizing at all. No employees were visible, but they had self-order kiosks, which I actually like bc I can take my time reading descriptions and ingredients, and customizing orders, bc I'm kind of picky.

They were "out of stock" on both of the soups we wanted. 🙄 Order 1: cheesesteak, salad, chips Order 2: French dip, bacon Mac and cheese, chips 3 macaroons

We sat on the bench next to the order status screen and pick up window. As soon as it said "ready" next to my name, I stood up, but there was only a dine-in order in the window. I figured they were finishing packing the bag, so I took the the few steps next to the window to wait. 3 more orders were placed in the window and picked up. I looked at the screen again, and my name was gone. I asked someone in the kitchen what happened to my order. They called my name to someone else, and I heard someone say something about "the no tipper."

I've been in the service industry for 20 years. I do not tip when I enter my own order and only kitchen staff touches it bc kitchen staff legally cannot receive tips, so I'm not going to tip non-existant FOH staff. I do not tip fast food counter service, even if a cashier takes my order, bc they are not paid the $2.13/hr that servers are paid, tips are wholly unnecessary. BUT ... even if it was an appropriate situation for a tip and I chose to not tip, that absolutely does not ever give staff permission to provide service based on the amount of my tip. So unprofessional.

Now, let's get to the actual food. 🤬

Order 1 was correct, the salad was delicious, but the sandwich was pathetic.

Order 2 (pics included, but BOTH sandwiches had this little meat) had onions and peppers on it, the cheese was burned onto the bread, and there was no aioli. Bacon mac & cheese was yummy.

Macaroons were delicious.

I don't know if the kitchen messed up our order on purpose bc I didn't tip, or if they've been directed by management to skimp on ingredients to increase profits, or if they are just poor employees, but I will never return to this...

Awe have been going to Panera Drive thru nice they spend in Pflugerville with about a 70% success rate from them getting the order right. Tonight getting home I found that the entire whole sandwich was missing after I asked 2 times at the window if it all was there - of course I should have checked and will in the future hold up the entire line at the window before driving off, which I am sure will thrill them.

Upon noticing my $10.00 sandwich was not included in our $65.00 order I called the Pflugerville location and spoke with Ivan (one of the managers - so he said) who proceeded to not help me at all. Yes, after a 5 minute wait he could confirm that my sandwich was sitting there and I could come back for it - or write down his name and the next time I was in I could get a new sandwich. I requested a refund on my credit card of the amount of the sandwich - he said no. Please keep in mind during this whole interaction Ivan never asked for my name or information - he seemed to only want me off the call. I asked for the name of his supervisor, he again stated he was one of the mangers - I advised that everybody had a boss and asked for his. He would not give me the name or number but he did put me on hold and said that he tried calling his district manager - with no answer. I finally had enough of Ivan and told him I would like for someone else to call me in the morning to work out ny requested refund, but reminded him that to do that he would need my name and phone numbers. I gave to Ivan - not sure if he really wrote it down or not and hung up.

I have since gone to the Panera Bread corporate website and called customer service were they clearly have a different caliber of people working than in their locations. The rep could not have been nicer, gathered all of my information and I am sure will get back to me and resolve my issue.

Lesson learned....check your order slowly and get it correct at the window no matter how many city looks you get from the...

I was picking up two doordash orders from this restaurant, and the orders were ready and on the kitchen counter behind the employees (not accessible by customers), but before i could even show my screen, an employee rudely asked me and another dasher to step back and let a customer get their food, then I think the manager showed up and asked us for our order names, and I showed them my screen and asked for those two orders, they didn't even look at the kitchen counter, they just looked up and said "yeah we don't have it, there's a delay with all the to go orders", I didn't even get a chance to tell them that the orders were ready and bagged up and sealed behind them, they just cut me off and continued to make more orders. I tried getting ahold of another employee 5 minutes later to see if they could get my two doordash orders, and the same employee from the first encounter that was making food commented "I don't know why he's asking for the food, we already told them there's a delay", THE FOOD WAS ON THE COUNTER. But okay whatever, I had a 😐 face for the next five minutes, even recorded that the food was there, and then another employee came from the drive thru line a few minutes later, and I had to hand signal to get his attention (this employee wasn't an a-hole though), and then he finally got my orders. It took 15 minutes from the time I got there, to the time I had both orders in my hand.

Why did Panera even make a to-go shelf if they are going to keep all the to-go orders behind the kitchen counter? I don't understand from a business point of view how that even makes sense, because that's just wasting money on renovations that are serving no purpose.

My advice? Find another restaurant to eat at/order from, this particular Panera's customer service has been going down the drain for the last few weeks. I would give zero stars but at least they weren't harassing me (and mind you, I'm a pretty tolerable person), so I guess I can...