Panera Bread — Restaurant in Swampscott

I placed an order in the store and told the cashier that I would be waiting outside in a black car for curbside. 20 minutes later, I sat in the car as everyone else went in and out of the store to get their order. I finally went in the store to pick up my order because I thought they were too busy.

When I got inside, I was told that someone else had mistakenly taken my order. I complained that I told them to either bring the order out or wave at the glass door and I would have come inside to get the order. The cashier then said that it wasn’t her fault that the order was taken by someone else. I refuted that statement and asserted that this wasn’t the right way to respond to a customer whose order they had just screwed up. She then went on to say “would you like a refund or wait for us to remake the food?” Not a single apology about the mishap. At this point, I asked to speak with a manager, someone with a bit of service skills, at least I thought. The manager came and asserted the same statement “someone took your order, do you want a refund or do you want to wait until we remake your order?”

I told the manager that this was a horrible customer experience, and that she should learn to apologize to customers whose orders they screw up. As I made that statement, she said “sir, it’s either you are going to wait for the order, get your refund or I am going to call the police.” At this point, she picked up the phone, dial the number but didn’t hit the send button. She showed me the screen of the phone to scare me that she was about the call the police. I told her that she should go ahead and call the police. As she called the police, another associate named Ramon (line prep) came from the back to diffuse what would have been another public relations nightmare for failure to have properly trained staff.

I work in a service industry too so I understand the importance of customer experience. I understand that whatever you are selling, someone is selling and what differentiate you from your competitor is how you treat your customers. Today, I experienced yet another episode of being black in this country. If Ramon didn’t come from the back and became a manager in seconds, there would have been police and arrest because I complained that they screwed...

We usually enjoy going to this Panera, even though it takes us about 20 minutes to drive there. Today was our third visit, and in the past, we have always enjoyed the food — it’s delicious and usually worth the trip. Unfortunately, this time our experience was disappointing because of the service.

We ordered two Spicy Chicken sandwiches, a bottle of water, and hot tea. After placing our order, we waited near the bakery area. While waiting, we realized we still needed the hot tea and water, so we approached one of the staff members for help. At first, he seemed respectful, but when we asked for the tea, his attitude quickly changed. He laughed as if we were bothering him, which made us uncomfortable.

When we repeated our request, instead of helping us in a professional way, he responded with sarcasm, asking what size cup we wanted in a tone that felt like he was trying to be “smart” about it. We were surprised and disappointed because we expected kindness and respect, especially after making the effort to come to this location.

We want to be clear that we love Panera’s food, and we came today because of our positive past visits. But the way we were treated made us feel ignored and disrespected. We hope management will take this seriously, because great food should always be matched with good...

Unfortunately we had to remove Panera from our list forever… It was not the first time that we didn’t like how they serve food, because every time, little by little it starting to get worse! We notice price increases and smaller portions, bad taste and overall experience! Today it was enough for us… After we made our order and waited for food we got cold pizza with burned bacon on top and had little ingredients, just to cover it a little, oatmeal that didn’t look fresh made (and I know what I’m talking about), sandwich with what knows what, because we know how it supposed to be and look! Ordered two drinks and had to ask for cups, and the lady acted when my husband asked for cups… We asked for refund after seeing “food”, and it took us a while and also unnecessary argument, because they were not shy to talk about us between each other… Also we brought everything back untouched but the lady said we have an attitude and was mad that we didn’t get cup😳 (it was forgotten on the table). So sad to see lack of respect and poor training, we saw how it was before, we live in the area and such...