Panera Bread — Restaurant in Westlake

I will preface this by saying, my husband and I are both restaurant industry workers, we understand that after Covid, finding staff, good staff, is hard to come by. However..

We frequent this location fairly often, multiple times a month. The service is usually “okay,” but nothing to complain about. This morning we went in and ordered from the kiosk as we do each visit. My husband ordered a large cold brew coffee, and when he received it, was a small. No problem, just went back up and told them that we ordered a large.. the kid at the register told us that there’s only one size.

We know that’s not the case because right behind the cashier is the menu on the wall.. indicating a small 16oz and a large 20oz with 2 different prices.. and since we paid for a 20oz, I asked for the large that we ordered and paid for.

This kid proceeds to argue with me that “it’s only one size” and getting sassy about it! Like dude.. c’mon! And this is the same kid that roughly 6 or so months ago, told us that they didn’t carry regular cold brew, just the vanilla..

I get if you’re not a cold brew or coffee drinker, it could be confusing.. but knowing the menu you are selling and putting a fake smile on is literally ALL you need to get through this business anymore. Maybe it’s just too much to ask now that the world has changed, but this store needs a moral booster and possibly someone from corporate to come in and re-train the staff..

Maybe it’s the hourly paid to the employees? Who knows.. but a good entrepreneur knows that a happy staff is a productive staff.. and this staff rarely ever looks happy. Not to mention the revolving door of employees we’ve seen within the last year.

To whoever is in charge of this store- do better! Do better by your employees and ultimately,...

Swiped my visa card and their system crashes. I stand there for 5 minutes while it reboots. No apology from them, but whatever, it happens. I say that I don't want to swipe my card again in case it took a payment out already. They tell me to do it anyway, and reluctantly I did... and sure enough, I got charged twice. I had to go in on another day and ask for a refund on one of the purchases. So that was a huge headache. Was envisioning a free sandwich or something for my trouble but nothing. Panera is not cheap. I don't understand how they can get away with this level of service.

On a previous visit it so happened that my girlfriend ordered a turkey avocado cobb salad. We were told there was no avocado AFTER we paid for it. Well, great, don't mind paying 8 bucks for a lettuce and deli turkey bowl or anything.

tldr Awful company, poorly managed location. Zoup is better if you want to overpay for healthy...

This location is okay. The self-serve coffee in the dining area is always mostly hot in the morning. Although I can't speak for the quality of the coffee in the afternoon, my experience at other locations is that it has been way below sub-par, and I would generally expect that this location is also no exception. Also for the past two weeks or so, the self-serve soft drinks machine has not had ice AT ALL, and it's very annoying. It's not beeping anymore which I guess is good, but no ice and for that reason alone I give this restaurant 3 stars. I've worked in fast food/casual dining before and our machines were never down for that long. Sometimes I go in there, and there is not a dry spot on the counter to put your cup down without dripping whatever sticky liquid it is all over the...