Panera Bread — Restaurant in University City

There are two other Panera stores near me, but decided to take my family to the newest one across from Costco. On opening the door a strong unpleasant odor permeated the store. I think something(s) had been badly burned in an oven. So strong that you could still smell it after 10 minutes of immersion. Two of the four order taking kiosks were offline. Four times I selected items for which the name of the item included the bread - and that bread was unavailable (asiago bagel, ciabatta, sourdough bread bowl). You are a bread company and half of your top menu items' breads were unavailable! So I settled for something that would have been a third or fourth choice, which ended up tasting fine (not great). The staff seemed to be milling about and chatting a lot. There were no clean tables (I had to clean one myself). We ordered it for dining in but it was provided in a to-go bag. We ordered four meals and only one fountain drink and they didn't give us a cup. I was looking at the shelf to see if our cup was there (another person's cup and receipt was sitting there) and was rudely asked by the store manager what I needed. When I explained that I didn't have a cup, he grabbed my bag without permission to look at the receipt. I assume he was confirming that I wasn't trying to steal a free fountain drink despite having paid for four meals. That was icing on the cake. The store was dirty, smelly, run by a rather large staff (at least a half dozen people visible, all behind the counter chatting) who apparently can't keep the place clean or heat food properly, or provide a dining-in set of plates / silverware - but in addition to all that, i felt unwelcomed and suspect of stealing when asking for the drink cup that i paid for. good thing i had a to-go bag because it made it easy to leave (dining OUT) and deciding to NEVER come back to that...

I get the concept of a fully digital cafe, but it’s a horrible one. The whole cafe feels sterile in a bad way, and not like other bread cos in the area. Bread Co has gotten so expensive, that the vibe is the only reason I would go, and that is seriously lacking here. To even call it a “cafe” is overselling this location by a long shot.

I also understand not having a drive through. Honestly, I fully agree that all of them should be order ahead, however, if that’s how you’re going to have it, you need a system to let people know you are sitting there. I shouldn’t waste my time sitting in the mobile order pick up lane for over 5 minutes just for the workers to not realize I’ve been sitting there. I did my part in ordering ahead, and bread co need to do their job in assisting their workers in a system to alert them when someone is there.

The limited menu is also frustrating. I got the sip club specifically for their hot tea, and this location doesn’t have it for some reason. And it solidified it for me to just cancel the subscription.

Honestly think Bread Co wasted their time putting up this location. If I return to bread co it definitely won’t be at this location.

Do yourself a favor and take the extra 5-10 minutes to go to the Richmond heights or Creve...

I placed an order at this location 8/1/24 and requested no basil and no onion on my sandwich. The sandwich had basil so I called and spoke with Tory who said to come back and get it remade the next day. I don’t have an abundance of time and I usually go through the drive through, so I called ahead to ask if I could pick up the remake through the drive through which the manager Kimberly said was not an option, so once again I am inconvenienced by their mistake, but since this was the only time I had available for today, I went inside. I get the sandwich and hurry back to work only to find that the remake STILL HAS BASIL ON IT! So of course I call back and Kimberly’s solution is for me to bring the sandwich back to have it made for a THIRD TIME! So now I have no lunch. On top of that Kimberly’s attitude was very nonchalant about the situation, she seemed to have no regard for the fact that she was asking me to come up there a THIRD TIME for the same order. She did not seem apologetic at all. The customer service here is severely lacking and it’s unfortunate because this is the location closest to my house and so convenient that I had literally ordered from there every day this week before this incident occurred. But needless to say, I will...