I like them, but I have had this beef with them for several years. Here is a blog entry I wrote about them in 2017 airing my grievances:
OCTOBER 23, 2017
Panera Bread, I Find You Exhausting
My favorite sandwich to put on my Pick Two was the Cuban Panini. I used to frequent Panera when they had that. And then they took it off the menu.
My favorite salad at Panera was the Chicken Barbecue, which was the only salad they had with a quasi-cream dressing. Then it went away. Then it came back. Then it went away. Then it finally came back. I was told it was “seasonal” at one location, told it was “discontinued forever” at another. So I pretty much gave up and just stopped going. Then I saw it back on their menu, so I went and tried to find a sandwich to pair with it, never completely satisfied, still missing the Cuban.
Somewhere along the line I discovered the Orange Cranberry Muffins. So I started going to the one close to work in the morning wanting to take some of them to work with me. The problem? They never had more than two of them! And usually they were out. I’d ask, and they’d say “We had 7 this morning.” Really? You can’t even make like a baker’s dozen to last a couple of hours?
After a couple of times of struggling to find a parking space at the one closest to work (there just isn’t enough parking) only to get there and find zero to two muffins, I gave up trying to bring any to work. But I hadn’t hit rock bottom yet. Next time I went in, I was told “They’re discontinued.” I said, “Are they coming back? You know, like how they keep discontinuing the Barbecue Chicken salad for no reason?” “No, they’re totally discontinued.”
So I found myself a new place to buy muffins and a new sandwich shop. Hadn’t been to Panera for lunch for about a year. I just finally gave up.
Then I get an email from Panera a couple of months ago saying the new Chicken Barbecue salad is now called the Chicken Lime something salad, but it inferred it was still the same salad, just freshened up. I don’t give a crap WHAT it’s called and not sure why you do. Just gimme the salad.
So I found myself by a different location and decided to get myself one of those and a sandwich.
What? Is that a Cranberry Orange Muffin I see? Well, two. I said, “I thought you said this was discontinued, so I haven’t been here for a year since you’ve discontinued literally everything I like to eat here.” She explained that it’s “seasonal.” What the hell is “seasonal” about an orange cranberry muffin or a chicken barbecue salad?
WHASSA MATTA WIT YOU??? No one cares about what season it is. We just want to be able to find our favorite thing when we go in year round.
So I got the Pick Two with a Chicken Lime salad and tried one of the only panini choices left (remember when they were KNOWN for paninis and the only people in town making them?) I remember the Cuban. It was big and fat, about 5-6 inches long and 4 wide. This panini was about 2 inches wide and 3-4 inches long. Never even seen bread that size. Tiny. And it was crap. It had a tiny amount of meat and a sauce I didn’t like and that-was-it.
I dug right into the salad when it came. And it did look similar to the Chicken Barbecue salad except — it tasted terrible. Terrible. It was sour. That was the main flavor in it: sour.
I’ve never sent anything back there, so this was a first.
You guys need to stop obsessing about whatever your spiel is now, "clean" or "fresh" or "seasonal" or whatever. You were fresh AND delicious when you first started, and your food was reasonably priced and worth the money. And now everything I had (except for the two muffins I brought home) was utter crap. And instead of a $12 bill, it was $17, just in this year that I’ve been away.
You need to dispense with the seasonal BS and get back to making food that is worth coming there for.
