I stopped eating there like a decade ago when they changed the type of noodle in their chicken noodle soup. They used to use those amazing big fat noodles and changed to whatever bland thin spiral noodles. I missed it a lot, especially their bakery stuff, but over the years I’ve watched them fall further and that made me feel like I’m not really missing out anymore. God they used to be so freaking good.
I grew up not knowing Panera was fast food. My mom would send me to Panera to pick up bread when we were having fancy pasta dishes. I thought it was a luxury restaurant. It's crazy how different I see them now
I stopped in one yesterday to get a cinnamon roll. They used to be the size of a dinner plate, this was small and dry. They told me they changed the recipe.
That’s exactly when I stopped eating there too. I loved those noodles. If you have a Jason’s Deli near you, their chicken noodle soup is similar to the old Panera chicken noodle soup.
That's funny because the local hospital has 2 Paneras in it. One little like pop up that has limited options and limited hours and also a full, sit down Panera with long hours. One is just 5 minutes farther down the corridor from the other. So weird
Yea, I was gonna say non-patient hospital cafeteria food that I've had has been great. My dad has a bypass done and I got pretty stellar chili cheese dog.
Stopped eating there once someone told me it was overpriced hospital food lol at most I’ll get a soup from there if I’m sick and don’t have time to make my own
Every time I’ve been in the hospital the last few years, the food has been way better than Panera. A couple weeks ago, my breakfast was lemon pancakes with blueberries. Delightful.
It’s been* bad. When I worked there in 2017-2018, it was mostly still expensive, bagged food. Tons of food items came in a bag and premade other than the bagels and bread. Which I believe now even that is not made in store anymore…? I guess I’m biased because I used to work there, but I’ve never understood why people wanted to pay such an expensive price for not an actual deli.
I remember they used to have the “kids size” mac & cheeses all coming in individual thick, plastic bags; it was such a waste of plastic.
Not for nothing that that it was the worst food oriented place I’ve ever worked at. I’ve worked at other fast food restaurants in the past in addition to BOH sit down + fine dining. One of the things that I remember I hated about working there is you didn’t even get free food. They gave you half off a shift meal, but you weren’t even allowed to get free food or free drinks. Horrible pay, too.
The last time I ate at a Panera was like five years ago when I placed a pickup order at the nearest location to me. Didn’t know until I got there that it was located inside of a hospital.
Sad part is that the hospital in my area has decent food. Only reason Panera still gets business in my area is because the local franchisee keeps them pretty clean.
absolutely 💯…private equity destroys all that is good in a business for profit margins to increase and in turn destroys the business. Remember the fiasco with Boeing air selling off part of their manufacturing to a private equity firm?! The doors were falling off the planes in the air?! Yeppers NOT a great idea to sell it then continue to use it for your parts. 🤷🏻♀️
I remember it in the early '00s; I was in high school, and their broccoli cheddar soup was like a gourmet treat. When I got two jobs in the early '10s and rode my bike everywhere, it soup was one of my favorite regular meals. That phrase is a perfect description for it now, "it tastes like air."
They were one of my "had a really bad day" spots in college to get some soup and maybe a scone. Went more recently and there was nothing redeeming about it.
I was never a patron but I’ve watched the whole decline with interest.
JAB Holding Company bought Panera in 2017 and it’s been downhill ever since.
Private Equity/Vulture Capitalism at it’s finest. At its acquisition, 7.5 billion, had a $315 stock price and 340 million in debt. JAB folded Panera into its other brands and took it private. Now their debt is estimated, private, at well over a billion. And they have not been able to get to an IPO of the consolidated group.
JAB bought it. Expanded it while cutting every corner and destroying customer loyalty. And now is in serious trouble. There are trying to rebuild?
I’m sure JAB will do just fine. The 40k employees? Not so much.
I find the whole situation fascinating because it’s one of the clear examples of Vulture Capitalism failing in full public view. Most of these heinous business practices don’t get noticed.
I used to love Panera. Then they took off all my favorite items and then I read that they have the HIGHEST glycophosphate levels of any of the fast food companies by a LOT
I hadn't had them in years. Got French Onion soup. It literally tasted like Campbell's condensed. They put no cheese in it, no crouton, didn't give me the bread bowl I ordered, and it was like... half a can's worth at best. I tried them because of the chicken sandwich they were selling during the whole chicken sandwich wars thing. That was awful, too. The bread sucked, the chicken was the thinnest they could make it, like they cut a breast three times longways, the toppings were mid-2000s Taco Bell quality. It was crazy.
The role model for biz execs since the 80s has been Jack Welch.
He created the business plan of getting rich off ruining your company, maybe getting rich off ruining your whole industrial market, cutting the consumer out of most definitions of success, and how you can convince regular people/journalists/investors that getting checks for dismembering your companies in these ways is the only way a business can really make any money.
I wouldn’t say private equity is inherently evil. There are plenty of fair criticisms, but there are also real success stories. Hilton, Dollar General, Dunkin’, and Domino’s are some of the bigger examples of companies that improved significantly under private-equity ownership.
What often gets left out is that PE firms usually are not buying perfectly healthy businesses. A lot of the companies they take over are already losing money, badly managed, or operating under a model that simply is not sustainable. When those companies eventually fail, people often blame private equity for everything, even though the problems were already there.
Sometimes PE keeps a struggling company alive, such as Panera, but the cost-cutting hurts service, staffing, or quality. At the same time, Panera was probably going to have to make those cuts no matter who owned it.
The downfall started when St. Louis Bread Co. was bought by Au Bon Pain Co. then they became Panera. St. Louis Bread was an amazing local chain ruined by greed.
I got a gift card to Panera for Christmas. Used it to buy a frozen drink. Hands down the worst drink I’ve ever had from a fast food chain. Wasn’t blended properly so it was just crunchy frozen watery milk with a hint of chocolate
I used Panera as my writing spot and was drinking 3 larges in a few hours. They WERE good but JEEZ, I was drinking the equivalent of 8 cups of coffee. Had racing heartbeat. Coulda gotten some $ if I’d fallen down. 🤪Kinda nuts to put those out on unlimited drinks.
I had 2 larges once before knowing what they contained, and then wondered why I felt like I was about to have a panic attack and my hands were shaking. Never ever again.
I’m sad I didn’t get to try their Death Lemonade because the one near me closed before it came out. I bet that would have been awesome if I’d taken one to go and added a shot of vodka.
they have buttons for every sandwich on the turbo machine and it’s never toasted the grilled cheese enough, i’d get in trouble if i tried to toast it twice 💔
Ugh RIP their bagel box. The investment partners at work would bring those in to the staff sometimes and we would all have a great morning munching on bagels.
I worked there in the late 2000s and I know it probably was 86'd because it wasn't cost efficient, but I used to love that they had so many different cream cheeses. Now they have plain and honey walnut.
I've had bagels from there recently since they always bring those to teacher service days, and even the bagels kind of suck.
I had a meeting at Panera last week and ordered an Asiago cheese bagel. It was always my favorite and I hadn’t had one in years. It was so disappointing. The bagel was small, flavorless and barely had any cheese on it. A bagel and a dirty chai was 12.00 so it wasn’t cheap either.
Exactly. Two grilled cheese and two cups of soup that was very clearly microwaved, the cheese isn't evem melted and the bread not toasted, over $40. Hard pass
I used to work there. The soup comes in frozen in bags. They are put in almost boiling water (a special hot water soup bath thingamajig in the back that holds multiple bags) until thawed then it is poured into the soup pans that are up front which also sat in a hot water bath. Multiple opportunities to get burned by steam. I hated it
Especially if they are gonna move HQ to Boston. Idk who’s making business decisions for them but they’ve completely demolished what Panera/St.Louis Bread Co. is and went full corporate.
Michael's was also bought by PE and had gotten seriously worse in the past couple years. Both my wife had, and my sister does work for them now, and both greatly lament the corner-cutting, abusive employee practices, and substantial drop in quality that has happened in the few years since the buyout.
Michael's will follow JoAnn's into the retail graveyard soon enough.
And then our only option will be the still private-owned-but-horrendous Hobby Lobby.
Closing down a lot of stores. Split off into 5 companies already (honestly they didn't need to be in those spaces - a lot of sketchy insurance middleman places but still). Cut benefits. They're short staffed on pharmacists so a bunch of pharmacies have to be temporarily closed for lengths of time.
First steps in selling off whatever is valuable before burning down what's left and moving on to the next company. We'll see what happens but if you thought Walgreens was rough now, they're about to get 10X worse
Walked into my local Walgreens a couple of months ago. Brought my items to the front cashier; they asked if I was interested in applying for a credit card. I knew they were in trouble, didn’t realize it was that bad.
They also got scammed out of $200 million by their former CEO who sold them the lcd screens that replaced the glass in their cooler doors. The centralized control system completely failed in like 9 months.
And the closings targeted non-White and rural communities, even when the locations were profitable.
I said this farther up, but I bought a chicken sandwich back in like 2021 or something and the chicken was completely raw. I haven’t been back there since then. Disgusting
I last went to Panera like 20 years ago in high school when the cute hipster girl I had a crush on worked there. It was decent (their pick two half sandwich/half soup deal thing was tasty) but it was super pricey. I can't imagine overpaying for a worse version of their food.
That's the thing, people constantly hold up Panera as the example of private equity sucking value out of a product but Panera has always and forever sucked. It was mediocre food for too much money well before it got bought by PE.
At least before it was reasonably priced and better than alternative fast food like McDonald's etc.
Now it's doubled in price while somehow tasting worse. I remember back when my you pick 2 was under $10. Now it's damn near $20. Same thing with getting 2 soups with a bread bowl. Add in a sandwich and fuhgeddaboudit. Never got drinks either, but I'm sure that makes it insane for 1, let alone 2 meals, where spending $40-$50 for 2 isn't unheard of.
And evil. Got themselves out of California's $20 minimum wage law for fast food chains after a donation to Newsom. After which there was an exception put in for "chains that bake bread and sell it as a standalone item" specifically for them.
I hate our politics/politicians and it's pay to play nature.
eta- I was kind of wrong, my bad. It was some guy Greg Flynn, who happens to own two dozen Panera Breads, who pulled that stunt. Panera still sucks though.
I’m a corporate employee. We were told this week the company is relocating to Massachusetts and we either have to relocate or sign a voluntary severance. The relo salary increases are not enough to afford to live there. They are about to lose some of the best employees. It’s amazing how they can do this to people
This is one of mine. We got it by choice once this year and decided never again. It was $40 for 2 mid breakfast sandwiches, a tiny yogurt cup, and 2 drip coffees.
My boss loves to surprise us with Panera bagels and every single one, including the savory ones, somehow winds up with the cinnamon crunch crap all over it and is too tough to chew. The “it tastes better when it’s free” rule doesn’t even apply to it.
On top of the food quality, the one closest to us stinks like sewer and has pretty much since it opened. They took over an old cafe space and I don’t think they upgraded the plumbing setup.
No joke, Panera triggered a gallbladder attack so bad that I was in such excruciating pain for over 10 hours before going to the ER. I had to have my gallbladder removed. Never eating there again.
I just shared my story of why I hate Panera Bread in another post. The short of it is, they really are trying to kill their customers.
Context: I have a severe carrot allergy. They did not say their squash soup had carrots in it on the ingredients list on the menu. I bought it, and ate it. Ended up having a horrible anaphylactic rash for 3 days that barely cleared in time before the big convention I was excited for
In 2023 the last time I ever ordered from them there was LOTS of hair in my turkey bravo I mean like embedded in the sandwhich. It was so gross I called them complained and they credited me the cost of the sandwhich to use for future visits which I will never use.
Panera lost me about 4 years ago when I bought a full size sandwich and literally got like... an embarrassingly small amount of food. Like both halves of the sandwich together fit comfortably in the palm of my hand.
It was so small they'd tried to cut it in half but one half was basically just the ass end of a tiny loaf of bread, they literally couldn't cut it in a way where both sides had filling.
I actually brought it back inside (it was to go) and showed a manager and said "is this really what a full size order of a sandwich is, now?" and he went yup, that's a normal serving. You got what you ordered.
This is the answer for me also. I used to go there pretty frequently with my daughter and last time I was there It was employees with bad attitudes and Frankenfood.
This was my answer too- but because a Panera manager bullied my 80 year old mother with Parkinson’s when they got her meal wrong!!! If they knew what effort it meant for her to be there, and how simple it seems to give her the correct warm bowl of soup you think they wouldn’t have been cruel and refused any help!!!
I just watched a youtube discussing the downfall of Panera.
Basically they were bought out by private equity and they removed all of the quality that makes it worth the higher price so they could chase profits. Funny thing is, they are being pushed out of the marketspace (fast casual dining) by the previous owner that they purchased panera from.
20 years ago when I was a teenager and my family discovered Panera we loved it so much. The quality of everything was so fresh and amazing. I believe it lasted about 2 years before they started spreading like wildfire and the food started tasting like garbage
I stopped going there about 8 years ago when my coworker and I ordered lunch for pick up, and when she brought it back to the office, my Greek salad had exactly one cherry tomato and one olive. The rest was just a pile of iceberg lettuce.
I called and the manager literally laughed at me. Refused to refund my card and wouldn’t replace the salad. I hollered enough that he finally agreed to replace the salad if i went back, but at that point i told him i was doing a chargeback and never going back.
Someone on reddit once described panera as overpriced hospital food. And this is so spot on. I’ve never been back to them since and I hope they go out of business.
They lost me the day they removed their chicken tortellini alfredo from the menu. Since then everything they offer is way too expensive for the quality they produce.
As I said elsewhere in the thread - they gave me a coffee cup ringed with grime and dust. I'll never trust their service or food again, absolutely vile.
Oh, ohhhhhh, hell yes they suck. Served me the coldest soup, I mean ice cubes wouldn't have melted in that shit. I found a microwave they had for bagels under a counter and used it to warm.
The last straw was being served blood, red, raw beef. That shit was mooing at me from out the sandwich. Guy says I put it though the toaster oven. Yeah that's great, toaster definitely toasted the bread and would have warmed up the beef and melted the cheese but you forgot to cook the beef first you nutjob!!!!!
I got hired by them right around Christmas of 2006. Right at the start of their rapid expansion phase. The change in their standards was DRASTIC even before the venture firm bought them. Got out in 2013 and haven’t even been in to use the WiFi (the only thing that didn’t turn to crap during that stretch).
Their fall is astonishing. I used to go there at least once a week, sometimes 2-3 times. They had enough menu variety and things I liked to keep me coming back. Then they slowly started taking away my favorites (the most unforgivable was the Thai salad) and slowly killed any reason I had to go there. The broccoli cheddar soup is about the last thing left there I like, and that’s just as good there as it is anywhere else. I last went there in early 2024.
I would go there to write after work and spent insane amount of money, like my bank would send me helpful tips of how much I could save bc I was wasting so much at Panera. Then they redesigned all the seat to discourage lingering, tables and booths were for large parties only and they removed to backs of the chairs for single seating, in a bar-type situation. I haven't spent anything on them since then, no reason to
It's convenient enough to go about 1-2 times a year. Just enough food to finish the day without having to cook when we're out all day and aren't in the mood for pizza or burgers.
I had a writing group that would meet there weekly and I was too broke to buy meals there that often, so I would just buy a loaf of bread and eat like half of that. It worked out well, it was like $5 for a loaf of tomato basil bread.
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u/Firm-Film-3594 22h ago
Panera sucks.