Panera Bread

I remember when Panera used to be one of my favorite places to eat about 7 years ago. The quality, staff and serving sizes have tanked across the board while their prices are now through the roof. This location is the worst of the worst. The whole store needs a complete overhaul from customer service to food presentation to cleanliness. Carpets and bathrooms need a significant refresh/remodel. I was served with a 'clean' fork with a crusty straw wrapper or napkin stuck on it. Meal for 3 people, which included one being a kids meal, was almost $40 and we didn't even get dessert. Absolutely ludicrous for what's now a step above fast food. I regretted the decision to eat here.

Miss a lot of the old menu items but the new Thai Chicken soup is sooooo good. I'm in love with it- please don't get rid of this one! I've been coming here for almost fifteen years. Ups and downs over such a long period of time but I keep coming back. Always had good service and well packaged pick up orders. Delivery is always fast as well. Seriously, try that Thai soup- it's amazing.

Thank you Panera staff and Aimee (Panera manager on duty) for a wonderful event! We were able to book the private conference room and held a small wedding shower for 6 ladies. Candice (Panera caterer) made sure we had food and beverages prepared ahead of time. It was a lovely afternoon at a perfect venue. Great job Panera Crystal Lake, IL!

Wow. Been coming here for over a year, and today’s experience was one of the worst I have ever had from a business in all my 45+ adult years. I used MyPanera to order dinner for my husband and myself, which he picked up and brought home. I noticed immediately that the two cookies I ordered were not there. Checked the receipt and confirmed I had paid for them. I called the Panera right away, and a counter person answered, after I was on hold for about 5 minutes. I explained that I didn’t get my cookies, and he left the phone to ask someone a question, then came back and said the manager would process a refund. I asked if I would receive an email or a text confirming this (we were talking about almost $6 of food), he paused again, then came back and said it would show at my bank in a few days. I told him that really wasn’t good enough, could I speak with the manager. He said yes and put me on hold. I was on hold the entire time we ate our dinner. I was on hold the entire time I drove back to the restaurant after I finished my dinner. As I walked in the door, I had been on hold waiting for her to pick up for 34 minutes. I asked to speak with her and she came out of the back room. The restaurant was not busy at all, there was plenty of counter help. I pulled her aside and asked her if she would like to be treated like this if a restaurant at had robbed her of $6 in food and showed her my phone, which was still on hold. She gave me a cursory “sorry”, and immediately blamed the counter person, saying he hadn’t told her. She did say he told her someone had been shorted cookies. I have been in retail management for most of my 43 year career. First of all, to try to lay blame on a counter person is not only unprofessional, is smacks of a total lack of accountability to her position. The minute she heard someone had been shorted food, she should have spoken with me personally, and not pushed her job onto a part time worker. Shame on her. She told me she couldn’t do a refund, the general manager had to do it on Monday. When I told her that wasn’t good enough (she had lost any credibility with me), and that since she had ruined our dinner, I wanted a full refund. She told me she couldn’t do that either, so I asked for the name of the general manager and that she write it down on my receipt. At that point she went to the computer and cancelled my whole order. So I guess she could give me a refund. Needless to say, I will be checking my credit card in a few days to see if she actually did cancel the order. It doesn’t let her off the hook, I will still be paying the general manager a visit on Monday, to see if that person can convince me to continue to give them my business. In my professional world, I would have had a final warning for doing what was done to me.

This restaurant was filthy there was no clean tables and the bathroom was very dirty to say the least the bathroom needs a major update among a good cleaning! Even the drink area was sticky and messy and where we threw our food out there was food everywhere and nothing had been wiped down. The food was good but they always say if the bathroom is dirty that means the kitchen is dirty too!!

Panera staff can’t get the orders right. So far 2 out of 2 orders wrong at Panera. First one at Fox River Grove gave me brioche instead of chiabatta bread for breakfast sandwich. I went back for that one to get fixed. Second order at Crystal Lake. Same breakfast sandwich left out the cheese. I didn’t bother to go get that one fixed. Too much stuff to do and I didn’t want to encourage staff to keep getting my order wrong, so I would have to wait in the store for them to make a new one every time. I gave two stars because I like their summer coffee/drinks deal and that’s the only good thing about it so fat.