Panera Bread — Restaurant in Southern Pines

Drive-thru visit #1: Got my order wrong after pulling ahead at the window's request. Was home before I unwrapped the sandwich and discovered it was the wrong one. I let it go. Visit #2: Asked again to pull ahead. Had ordered and was charged for a chicken caesar salad, among other things. Woman who brought us our order asked if we'd ordered the "caesar salad" to verify who we were. I corrected her to say chicken caesar salad. She repeated after me as if correcting herself, apologizing. Got home. No chicken. Complained by phone to manager. Took some doing to get reimbursed to my debit card despite still having the receipt. Visit #3: Wife insisted we go. We ordered for the whole family. Were asked to pull forward. I implored her not to. She complied. Waited half hour. No one ever brought out any of our giant order, or even approached our car. When we pulled back around to ask what happened, they didn't know. When we asked if they could make it now, they said they were out of bread. Panera Bread was out of bread! They reimbursed us at the window. Visit #4: I no longer patronize this location. Wife decided to ignore my first two experiences and chalk-up the third to bad luck. She drove us through to order for herself. They informed her she had a free cookie and asked if she wanted it added to that day's order. My wife said yes. At the window, she was asked to pull forward. I leaned over my wife from the passenger seat to say "No thank you." The lady at the window was put-off by the answer. I explained that they had always messed-up our drive through order when we pull forward, including once when we got nothing at all. The lady at the window took personal responsibility, assuring us that this was her job and that she'd make certain our order was correct. We pulled forward. My wife looked at the receipt and noticed we'd been charged for the cookie. She went in to get our money back while they delivered the bag out to me in the car. Rather than getting reimbursed, my wife, inside, opted to accept their apology and their offer of what she thought was a second cookie to save time. However, she returned to the car to discover that not only had we been charged for the supposedly free cookie, they also never put it in the bag, meaning we were now in possession of one paid for cookie and no free cookie due her. Maybe I am making too much of a cookie, but going back in a SECOND time, they again apologized and tried to rectify offering two more cookies. These visits were all in Dec, Jan, and Feb of 2020-2021 with no visits in between, meaning these are consecutive errors in serving us, an unbroken chain of oversights, contradictions, mismanagement and frankly, lies. For the record, while I think it important to express this chain of events in concert, the feedback field on their website does not allow 1/6 of this content length. How can they correct these issues if feedback is parsed into making corporate presume these are isolated instances? I just don't think it should be this hard to place an order, pay, and get the food...

Original review: 2024 ...Not the best visit here this time. 2 of my items ordered were not correct. The customer care was also lacking that day as well. Even the manager on staff did not apologize for the errors. 😞 Update: May 2025...Too bad Panera has gone to automation. Does is really save the bottom line? The atmosphere is not as warm and inviting. So this evening we dropped in to grab dinner, the soups were 'almost' warm. I took mine back to the kitchen and asked if they could heat it up as it wasn't hot enough. I took my complete tray with everything still on it, by the way, since we had just picked it up and taken it to the table. The response from the kitchen person was that once they plate it they can't take it back, so they would need to make a new one. I then said, so, OK, could you do SOMETHING as it is not even hot? So without a word, she took the bowl and went in the back. She came back with a new serving container of the soup, which clearly showed steam rising from it and served another bowl for me. Thank you for that. But I sure do miss the days of a friendly greeting, a friendly reply and helpful service. Maybe the location does not promote customer service with all the automation...I don't know. This was just our experience again today. Prices are much higher, but the restaurant has become one of a fast-food place, for drive thru and pick up, where...

I have always really loved Panera, but the last couple of years they have raised their prices and almost every table seems to be full or dirty when we go. I know it’s a nice atmosphere to hang out but it’s super frustrating when you have every booth in the restaurant occupied with only 1-2 people and a bunch of 2 seater tables empty. I also feel like Panera is another place that has been hit extra hard by COVID so they, like everyone else, are understaffed and so the majority of their tables are dirty. I know it’s not a sit down restaurant, but I do expect more than a McDonald’s level of cleanliness. As a non-coffee/tea drinker it would be really great if Panera would start carrying more diet soft drinks. The last two times I had a salad at this location there were more than 2 or 3 pieces that were yucky (which is a lot for a small salad). For the most part though their food is still pretty good. Overall, even though I love their food, for the price, cleanliness and lack of availability of tables for our family we don’t hardly ever go anymore. The last time our family ate at Panera we spent more than I did at Olive Garden earlier in the week and there aren’t even drinks included in...