Panera Bread — Restaurant in Redmond

I travel often for work and as a regular Panera patron I've been to quite a few. Quite often I use them for work catering and I visit on a regular basis. That said, I'd have to say this is easily the worst location I've visited. The store was dirty, floors were sticky and tables didn't look like they'd been wiped down in eons.

The service was a whole other experience altogether. There were 2 working the counter area, a black-haired girl and a guy, I think his name was Ivan. Neither acknowledged customers and just stood there. I had my family with me and my wife asked about some allergy ingredients/concerns. Ivan looked at her with a blank stare then pointed over his shoulder at the menu without saying anything as if that answered anything. I had to ask him to get out their allergy/ingredient book so my wife could actually figure something out.

Fast forward to actually ordering and it was apparent I knew more about the menu and options than he did. When we asked for something to be warmed up, we were literally pointed to a microwave without any words. Now the microwave was located under a filthy coffee area. Spilled cream, sugar and coffee that had been there a while. Someone had spilled a cup of coffee on the floor and it never got wiped up the whole hour we spent there. My mother in law wanted tea but there was no hot water available. When asked about that, Ivan said they keep hot water in the back and disappeared for a couple minutes before finally returning and slid a 2/3 cup of water across the counter, again without saying anything.

2 out of 7 of our orders we wrong or missing things so that took multiple trips to get remedied as well.

All in all this experience as so bad, we actually look back and laugh at the obsurdity of the whole situation. Luckily, I know this isn't the norm for Panera but we definitely won't be patronizing this...

Came in at late lunch hour and restaurant relatively empty. The two other sets of people in line seemed to be having difficulty with the cashier when ordering (not necessarily the fault of the cashier) so we opted to use the kiosk. When I was texted to come to the typical food counter to receive my order, mine was not there nor was it the order bagged on the table. After 10 min or more waiting I finally asked where my order was. It ended up being in a cubby between the front of the house and the food counter. Everything was bagged as if a to go order. No where in the kiosk did it say dine in or to go. Disappointed our food was now cold and not on plates, we proceeded because we were hungry. My sandwich (that I had an odd craving for being over a year since I had been at a Panera), was mediocre at best. Smooshed, and light on interior. My soup was missing cheese and the croutons (french onion). They used to slice the sections of baggette and now it's a small chunk torn. My husband's pizza was "worse than school lunch". I know Panera before the pandemic was alot more of a busy happening spot that I didn't quite understand. Unfortunately I am not sure where this leaves them especially rumors of worse work environment, bread brought in off site, and everything microwaved/minimalist/cut corners effort. I'm better off making soup and sammy at home and if it wasn't for the craving of the chipotle chicken sandwich or the in a pinch lunch, I would have never went knowing...

I love Panera, but this particular location always makes me cringe when I visit. It's seldom busy there when I go, and yet it usually takes employees 3-5 minutes to acknowledge my existence despite the fact they are standing about talking to each other or refilling cups. And sometimes, there's literally no employee in sight to help me. Today I went and it was again...mostly dead. There was 1 employee I saw straight away, but no one else in sight. The employee didn't seem to be doing anything important, but eventually (several minutes later) came up to the cash register to help me. The person seemed to be new, so maybe in this instance, that was the reason for the hesitation. On top of that, despite the lack of customers, they were out of my favorite coffee and out of half and half. When I brought this to the attention of another man (a larger fellow who seemed to have some degree of authority - it wasn't his first day), he acted like I had greatly imposed upon him. He let out a big sigh and begrudgingly took the cream container. Look dude... I'm sorry if you hate your job and your life but it's not my fault. So needless to say, the service here SUCKS. Luckily, most...