Panera Bread — Restaurant in West Covina

This has to be one of the worst restaurants and establishments I’ve ever been to. Over the course of 4 months of attending the restaurant, I’ve seen how degrading that building and the service as become towards the customers. Here are some of the issues wrong with this Panera location:

-Unsanitary Conditions: It’s apparent that the building is several years old with how the carpet inside being completely filthy. On top of this the management inside isn’t on top of keeping the building clean with regular sights of dirt, food, crumbs, napkins and more all seen in the ground. At multiple tables on the ground these types of trash are common.

-Long waiting times for food: Another common trend found is the long waiting times for food. I’ve witnessed first hand of how some customers have waited up um 30 minutes for a single soup or sandwich. What makes this worse is when you ask one of the employees about your food, they respond back with an aggressive and disrespectful manner back to you. On top of the waiting time, the food is overpriced for what you get. An entire meal that includes a sandwich, soup and a drink costs as much as 2 whole sandwiches from Porto’s that can feed up to 4 people.

-Dirty Bathrooms: the bathrooms inside are always filthy. The floors are covered with black stain marks from customer but from homeless people especially. There can be paper towels on the ground, toilet paper, sink water, toilet water, even hairs (as seen in the sink photo) and more. And the bathrooms are like this the entire day until when the restaurant closes at 9 where employees lazily dragged an old mop to “clean” the floors.

-Homeless People: a number of homeless people roam around inside of the Panera location. This includes a gentleman who lives inside of 2 cars that are regularly parked within the parking lot of the Panera. He has a goatee and long white hair on top of always wearing sunglasses while also always sitting in the sitting area past the self serve drinks area inside. What makes this individual stand out more is how he sprouts out conspiracy theories on COVID-19 and Donald Trump while also having been kicked out the restaurant before in the past (although the next day, he easily comes back in with no involvement from the staff whatsoever). Then there’s a Asian American homeless woman who brings her entire cart inside of the building and spend large days on end inside of the building. There have been at times where she has fallen asleep at one of the tables with no saying from the manager John or any of the employees (even though this is supposed to be a family restaurant and not a homeless shelter). Her cart is in one of the photos included in the review. Another thing that these homeless people do inside is that there have been cases where they’ve have stolen other customers food !!! They wait for when Jon (the MANAGER) is distracted along with other employees and they take the food right off the counter inside. They also take the plastic cups that are reserved for laying customers inside without any intervention from the employees inside.

Overall I would highly recommend going to a different restaurant for any types of meals in the surrounding areas or cities. Not only is this restaurant riddled with homeless people that make eating inside uncomfortable but goes against the image of family friendly that Panera strives for. Long waiting times for food, overpriced food, dirty bathrooms, dirty floors, and more all await if you plan on visiting this Panera location. If you ever want to file a complaint against management, look for the manager named John. He has a black bread and typically wears flannel style...

To be fair I used the app just to claim a deal. Ordered the Baja Bowl with chicken. The app explained to me that they were out of tomatoes but I could replace them with something else. (Yes. For an extra charge. I could always add items weather or not they have tomatoes.) The food was ready when I arrived but I took the bowl out and it was the smallest portion of food. You could see the empty space where the tomatoes were supposed to be. At first I thought they forgot to add the chicken but I finally found a couple pieces. They must've ran out of chicken as well. This next comment has more to do with the app then it does with this particular location. There's too many in app offers that pop up. It's a bit deceiving in telling you you can replace items when really it's just telling you you can add extra items for extra charge. I like tipping... no... I LOVE to Tip people for their Good Service. If a waiter is very attentive and friendly I'll give a 30 or 35% tip. What I don't like is a program that asks how much I'd like to tip before I've even received my service. While checking out the app asks how much I'd like to tip. $2 $4 $6 or other amount. It doesn't even give a ,(no tip option). If I love my service I'd rather just leave a cash tip at the location. Now I'm imagining that the reason my portion was so stingy is because I chose the (other amount) option and only gave a dollar for a service I hadn't received yet. Had I tipped more and received the amount of food I received I'd have felt even more disappointed. The food Tasted pretty good and I even enjoyed the slice of baguette that they give with your order but I guess inflation has really affected this location as well because it seemed like they were rationing their bowls. Or maybe they were just running out of more ingredients. It's just too expensive for the...

Extremely rude staff! This location was out of the Autumn squash soup and did not let us know until after the order was placed. My niece went to get our order while I sat at the table. She came back and asked me to go up and ask for a different soup because Autumn squash was out. There was a mix up with the order and they gave me a bag that had a receipt with Autumn squash on it. The girl from behind the counter came out and rudely said I took someone's order. It was quite humiliating and embarrassing that she announced in getting off everyone in the restaurant that I took the order when she gave it to me telling me it was mine. She rolled her eyes and went back behind the counter. Shortly after, another member of the staff came out and told me I took someone else's order. I told him I had no need to steal and took out nothing other than the soup from the bag. I didn't like what they were implying in front of EVERYONE in the restaurant. I told him to take the bag and let him know this was their mistake, NOT mine. I can NOT belive they would accuse their customers of taking an order. I was sitting down sharing lunch with my niece who has bad anxiety issues and this did not help. This is the WORST behavior I have ever...