Great Food, Relaxing Atmosphere
Written: Sep 08 '06
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Great food, wonderful place to relax, great customer service
Cons: Sometimes they run out of bread on busy days
The Bottom Line: I would recommend this restaurant to anyone. You can find a sandwich that you love with the best and freshest ingredients. They also have plenty of freshly baked sweets!
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| nechtress's Full Review: Panera Bread |
Panera is one of my favorite places to eat. The atmosphere is wonderful and they have a large variety of foods to choose from. Additionally, I've had excellent service every time.
The Atmosphere
Panera is an excellent place to relax, have a business meeting, study, eat with a friend or significant other, or surf the web. Most of the Panera restaurants I have been to have light wooden seats and tables, comfortable booths, and even leather sofas and chairs. The seating areas are usually large with plenty of places to sit. The walls are usually light orange with colorful paintings that are easy to look at. Soft jazz music usually plays in the background. One can bring their laptop and surf the internet because most Paneras offer a free wireless connection.
The restaurant is informal, you just walk up to order your food and have a seat where you please.
The Food
Panera is open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner...and of course snacktime(anytime). Although I've never eaten at Panera for breakfast, I know that they have a huge selection of fresh muffins, bagels, and scones. Actually, these items are available all day. They also have brownies, cakes, and cookies that look delicious. Coffee drinks are served all day. Additionally, they have a drink that is similar to Starbuck's frappucinos--I.C. Mochas, I.C. Caramels, etc. I am starting to like the I.C. Mochas as much as a Mocha frappucino from Starbucks because they are a larger size for nearly the same price as Starbucks. The I.C. Mochas taste like they have less coffee than Starbucks drinks, but they are still just as great.
For lunch and dinner, Panera offers various sandwiches on freshly baked bread, hand tossed salads, soups, and their newest thing is an organic pizza. They also have fresh fruit as a side item or crispy potato chips.
My favorite sandwich is the Sierra Turkey. This sandwich has Asiago cheese baked into the bread, fresh greens, red onions, thinly sliced turkey, and chipotle mayonnaise. The sandwich is consistent every time. I have also tried a few other sandwiches, but this one is my favorite.
Other sandwiches include: Tuscan Chicken, Turkey Romesco, Pepperblue Steak, and many others. Sandwiches can be cold or pressed paninis. They all have gourmet ingredients....you won't find a sandwich like this at Subway or any other sandwich shop!
Salads include the Bistro Steak with gorgonzola cheese, Strawberry & Poppyseed Chicken Salad (fresh strawberries), and the usual salads.
Soups can be served in a bread bowl and they offer the usual soups like chicken noodle as well as some interesting unusual soups like Tuscan Vegetable & Ditalini Soup.
Pepsi products are served for beverages along with freshly brewed iced tea--my favorite with Splenda.
I have to warn those who are watching they're calories. A simple turkey sandwich with greens and a little mayo can add up to about a thousand calories. The servings are very adequate, not extremely generous, but the fresh baked breads with cheeses and other ingredients baked in probably make the calorie count go up.
Prices
The pricing is decent, not cheap, but not expensive, but well worth the price. You can get a meal for about $7 with a drink. Pastries are much cheaper, about $2. It all depends on what you get.
Customer Service
The first time I visited Panera, they had run out of the special bread that usually made my sandwich (it was a tomato basil bread). They offered me sourdough bread instead and gave me a free cookie to compensate. It's not unusual for Panera to run out of a certain type of bread on a busy day. Your sandwich just won't be the same unless it's on the bread that it's supposed to be on. I would often visit and ask if they had any of the Asiago Cheese bread left to make my Sierra Turkey, and if they didn't, I would leave. I emailed Panera about how often I visited and how they had run out of bread so many times. The representative apologized for the inconvenience and a few days later I received a coupon in the mail for a free meal!
Recently, I visited a Panera and they gave me the wrong sandwich. I didn't realize this until I got to my car. I took it back and they made the right sandwich and let me keep the other sandwich too! That's two meals for the price of one!
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
nechtress
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Reviews written: 4
Trusted by: 0 members
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