Panera Bread — Restaurant in West Hartford

This Panera is located at Bishop's Corner in West Hartford Connecticut and it is very poorly managed. On several occasions recently I have walked in and ordered a coffee and, after getting my empty cup and going over to fill it, I found the light roast coffee to be Stone Cold. It seems to take them a good 10 to 15 minutes to fill the coffee urn with hot coffee after they finally make it. I was less than impressed to find that the sugar choices were limited as well. Then the half and half was empty and nobody seemed to know or care about it. The napkin holder was totally empty and the staff was unaware of that as well. I looked around and saw brooms and dustpans sitting out on the floor in the open seating areas. I began to wonder if they expected us to use them to clean the floors. One member of the wait staff was busy trying to take care of getting the coffee refilled properly but everybody else seem to be wandering around not sure of what their duties were at the moment. The coffee bar is directly across from the registers and would be a very easy stop for the wait staff to go to to check on the status of the copies, the napkins, the brown sugar, and the half and half. In this particular Panera, they never seem to get around to it. I have shopped there numerous times because it is near my home. Unfortunately they never seemed ready and the staff always seems to be lost as to what to do next. I also have no appreciation for sandwich makers whose pants are hanging down below their backside. That is very unsanitary, and when they're busy trying to pull them up to the style at "mid-bun" range it is even more so. Seeing a sandwich maker with a beard that comes down 6 to 8 inches below his chin, and is only minimally covered with one of those stupid blue masks, does very little to build confidence in sanitary standards in this store. The tables, all carefully marked with labels telling us to sit there because they were so carefully cleaned and inspected regularly, somehow got rid of the Covid germs but left four layers of previous customer's soups and salad dressing all over them. ALL needed to be wiped clean instead of leaving them for customers to make the best of it with dry napkins. I may sound like a grouch, but when you pay sit down restaurant prices for your food and then see the unsanitary conditions in which it is made while you watch does not make one feel like eating there either. This is only the Panera franchise at Bishop's Corner in West Hartford. Many others all over the East Coast have served me very well, but I have seen the last...

Usually really great service. I was going to give them 5 stars because of how they handled my incorrect order. They fixed it right away and the manager was so nice about it! I called to tell them about missing ingredients and when I called I did not give my name but they said they would remake the item for me. When I went back into the store, since they didn't have my name, I knew I would have to speak to someone. There was no one in line. I walked up to the cash registers like I was going to place an order but there was no one there. I did not want to interrupt the people making food as they were obviously very busy. There was a boy standing slightly around a corner but in full view of anyone who would be in the line. He looked at me multiple times and instead of walking over to help or (if maybe that wasn't his responsibility at the moment) getting someone to come help me, or even just saying hello I'll be with you in a minute, he continued to have a conversation with someone out of my view. After he glanced over for the 3rd time and still did not come to help me I walked over to the counter where people were packing up orders and unfortunately had to interrupt a very nice woman who was in the middle of something for her to get the man I spoke to on the phone and get my food. As someone who has worked in customer service for years this is extremely unprofessional and just rude. If I had been there to place an order on the spot I would have walked out and not ordered anything.

Edit: lowered to 2 stars because I went again for curbside with my mother. I waited well past the time it was supposed to be done and ended up having to go inside where my food was sitting on a cart, finished, just not brought to me. I waited in line behind a couple placing an order. When the couple was done and I walked up to the cashier she did not greet me at all. She literally stared off into space or was looking at something on the wall behind me and I had to say hello to her for her to look at me even though I had been in line and walked up directly in front of her. What is going on at this place???

I've been coming here for YEARS consistently but I think I'll start driving somewhere else. Please retrain...

Staff is unproffessional and rude. The behind counter staff has attitude issues. They are not at all customer service friendly. I have actually stopped eating at all their locations due to consistant issues with the staff. I almost feel like Panera Bread doesnt care if their empolyees mistreat and give their customers and soon to he former customers problems when they make a mistake.

Many times i have exprienced attitude from their staff and backtalk when needing to point out that they made a mistake. I was blamed saying i didnt type my order in correctly and i been told to “relax that its not that inportant”. Honestly you work for me the customer and the company not yourselves. Makes me realize that these “people” are not fit to work in a service industry and thus Panera Bread has a lack of ability to either train correctly or they need to have management retrainned or need to stop hiring kids who clearly dont care about where they work.

I will be constantly leaving bad reviews until either the star rating drops to nothing or they fix their employees in their location. They are tude untrained and think they can speak to the customers how they want. WRONG YOUR COMPANY NEEDS TO BE RAN RIGHT. i run a $800k a year business and store with almost 5 star rating by training and speaking to customers like they are...