Panera Bread

I had the new Citrus Asian Chicken salad. I really liked it. The dressing has a sweet and tart flavor. The greens were fresh and crisp and there were a nice, complimentary collection of ingredients. My dinner companion had a bowl of the chicken noodle soup. It was tasty and had a lot of noodles, veggies, and chicken but was a bit over salted.

Came here on a Wednesday afternoon. Should have been very quiet but there was a line out the door. I waited over an hour for a small cup of Mac and cheese, which should’ve taken a minute to scoop. My order name was never on cue screen and I eventually got it after the employee on the register went around back and scooped it herself. I have been coming here since they opened, and I have never had this problem before but this experience definitely changed my opinion. The only reason I am giving 2 stars is because the employees were very nice and helpful.

This was the first time at this location, it was just as delicious as at other locations. A little weirded out that I was getting ready to place my order, but I was stepped back a couple of feet for safety sake, and a couple of younger fellows came in looking for their on line orders, it looks like they were strangers, but immediately began talking about the online order system to each other. One left, then the other had 2 orders, in the meantime we were totally ignored even tho we were there first. After literally 4 minutes, She took care of us as if this is a normal occurrence. We then had to wait 10 minutes (understandable) for our food. Maybe next time I'll order off the app, and just jump in ahead of a person waiting to eat in. I'll get preferential treatment. That's never happened at the Swampscott location.

I placed a web order here for pick up. 1x Avocado, Egg White and Spinach breakfast sandwich, 1x Smokehouse BBQ Chicken Sandwich with a French baguette side, 1x Bear Claw and 1x Cafe Latte. My hubby picked up the order and came back to our hotel and the French baguette was missing! Also, for the Avocado Egg White Sandwich I asked to add some peppadew peppers, but they did not add that. I actually wanted the sporuted grain bagel flat but it was sold out and had to go with the black pepper focaccia.

I really cannot stomach Panera anymore, literally. Their quality standards have gone way down hill and the food is just not worth the price or the wait in the awful long lines contained in their restaurants. This location is horrible and is consistently slow service. We ordered lunch for our local Waltham office and the assorted sandwiches we ordered were terrible. We ended up trashing most of them due to nasty taste and fatty chicken, brown lettuce and rock hard bread. The cookies were even rock hard and inedible. I cannot bear to visit another Panera again just out of pure wasted energy and time. It would be a discredit to my appetite.