Panera Bread — Restaurant in Town of Watertown

2018: 5 stars; Review, "Perfection"

2024 rvw:

Changing 5 stars to 1 star.

Horrible.

1 thing about the food: Their bread is always TOUGH & HARD. How is "bread" in your name & all of it is nearly inedible (or, at least, hard to chew)!?

We like the entrées but it's always chaotic in there (no rhyme or reason to the flow) & nowhere to really stand while you wait for ToGo or for ordering or for anything else. And while getting in or out you nearly get trampled on because there's insufficient spacing. The noise follows you wherever you are - even into the bathroom.

So, we rarely went inside to dine in despite really wanting to have a staple go-to place to breathe & relax & have fun.

Food is good .... WHEN they get it right. Having less hassles to deal with is 1 reason for people to dine out or get takeout! The convenience of not having the hassle of having to do dishes is a big factor & a bonus why people regularly eat away from the comfort of their home!

So - despite getting food there nearly MOST days out of the week, we completely stopped going. We always had to check our food & sometimes we would miss things or be so tired to not want to do a bag check for our items. But they have 2 or 3 checks & balances in place: the cook, the bagger, the checker & then with us, it's 4 people checking the orders. How can THREE different people who are paid to know what is on the menu (& can re-review the ticket) miss things!? It's not OUR job to know!

Plus, the app doesn't work. (I would take a pic of all past orders to show how often we gave them money & our advocacy but we deleted the app & it's not worth it to go to that much trouble since we have lives to live)

It's simply more convenient to order...

Absolutely disgusting with careless people making food that’s paid for with hard earned money. Smh $50 for two sandwiches and two CUPS of soup and two drinks … just to have black MOLDY tomatoes and lettuce…MY LETTUCE WAS BLACK AND BROWN MUSH!!! I was able to SPREAD LETTUCE WITH MY FINGER!! are you kidding me?? Not to mention hearing the people making food say “10 second rule, it’s about to be 20 second rule” ummm WHAT?! DISGUSTING. It really takes some careless gross sick dirty people without out any damn self respect to have that type of attitude and behavior.

P.S after showing the manager in a polite manner mind you even though I was sick to my stomach…offered my wife and I an $11 refund. 🥴 you LITERALLY allowed GARBAGE to be sold to customers. What makes it worse, is all the people giving their money to this place I’m sure had absolutely no idea...

More like an upscale McDonalds. Been here several times and something happens each time- wrong food, sloppy presentation, got rotton apples TWICE, and a rude person in the grill area who rolled her eyes when i asked for a bag of chips that didnt have a hole in them. Decided to try take out and got a Chicken caesar salad but there was only 2 pieces of chicken on it and my baguette side was ROCK hard. Husbands chicken wild rice soup was REALLY watery and he couldnt eat his baguette either. The bagel I ordered for breakfast the next day was already sliced, toasted and rock hard! So when I tried to try warming it up, it just made it worse. No taste and harder to chew than a frozen hockey puck. Such a shame! I paid $40 for my whole order and half of it was an extreme let down in quality. Probably never coming here again. Not worth it...