Panera Bread

I walked in to get salad and soup today and had such a great experience. Mike was my cashier and he was so helpful. I needed a lite or sugar free dressing and he went out of his way to explain the different dressings they had. He also put some of the items in the salad I chose on the side, such as the fruit in case it was too much sugar. He also suggested to put the salad dressing on the side as well in case it was too sweet. He explained the panera points card and singed me up. I really like this panera. I have gone through the the drive through twice before and they are really fast if you are in a hurry. I love being able to get fresh yummy food on lunch. Panera is such a great alternative to the fast food in the area.

My wife and I were at Panera Bread on May 30^th at 1:15 PM @ your Café 4029 location in Tinley Park. Order was placed and everything seemed fine at first. Well… This was were things started going bad!
1) There were employees running in and out of the facility like 10 yr. old kids at playground /​screwing around
2) There was 1 girl, off shift, just standing around the pickup area talking with fellow employees about how she does things at work and how the «new» employees aren’t as good as her.
Fine… 1 and 2 happen everywhere at every store and restaurant
Well…
3) My buzzer goes off after 5 – 6 minutes that my food is ready. Well, that’s not true at all. I go to the counter to pickup our food and my order is not ready. When I ask, the girl standing behind the counter says it’s not ready yet and will be a couple of minutes. Then she starts questioning me what I even ordered in the first place. I tell her and she starts yelling out to 3 other employees where the specific items are and not 1 of them have any idea. Even though my buzzer goes off that my order is ready… 3 people in front of me are still waiting for there orders.
4) Another 10 minutes goes by and my wife is now mad /​wondering what’s going on here? I ask, «Where is my order?“Half of it is sitting here and the other half is stilling missing. I get questioned again what are you missing? I tell the girl again what is missing. We still have to heat up your chicken tort alfredo? WHAT??? I question her on why is it taking so long? She interrupts me and tells me I can give you 2 FREE bakery items. UMM… No I kinda want my food I ordered 15 minutes ago.
5) Food is giving to me now about 4 minutes later. NOTE… 20 minutes have now gone by. My French Onion soup is nothing more than liquid broth. That was a waste of $ 4.39. I ordered Tomato & Mozzarella Flatbread and received tomato flatbread with no cheese. I’ve reached that point of… I’m not even going to bother telling them this.
6) After all of this… I bring the food to my wife at the booth and find out. I HAVE BEEN GIVING NO SILVERWARE for my soup. I go back to the counter again and ask can I have 2 spoons? I’m knowing questioned why I need them? SERIOUSLY???
7) I’m not the only one this happened to this day. The 45 minutes my wife and I were in there… EVERY CUSTOMER after us had the same issue. Not 1 of your 6 employees on shift at the time had any idea what was going on. We heard everything from social media gossip between your employees to the Supervisor on duty at the time had no idea where 2 of the employees were at.
8) Your Manager of the location is something else as well. During all these issues going on with your customers he’s doing nothing about it. He looks over at the counter when customers were getting mad and walked into the back and hid.
8a) While all of this happening… He finds that it must be the smart thing to do to personally seat certain customers (who come in 10 minutes later than everybody else who is having issues) and take their order at the table, personally serve them in 2 – 3 minutes, get their drinks for them and to make it even better… Come back to them after 4 minutes and ask if everything is made to their liking like at your everyday restaurant. Come on… There’s a line of 5 – 10 angry customers waiting for 15 – 30 minutes and you have the nerve to do that?
I’ve been to Panera Bread many times, many locations and never experienced such horrible service. It felt like I was at Burger King/Wendy’s. In other words, waiting for food in a dump!
Never again will I enter this Panera Bread location. The staff is downright horrible.

I have given this location several chances and have always been disappointed. Today I went there at 830 am and they were out of everything bagels! You sell bread??? When I asked the «associate» she informed me…“we out”. That’s it not, «hey it has been busy sorry» nope just «We out». I mean the attitude was unreal. Also a lady came from the drive thru with her screwed up order and while the «supervisor» was trying to figure out what was going on the same associate informed the customer that «it all in there». I mean hire some educated associates and maybe the service would improve. I go to the one on Harlem and 159^th all the time and have NEVER EVER had an issue. So I started to wonder. Come to find out this location on 191^st is a franchise. The mystery is solved. The owner needs to really dig into what’s going on. And Panera as a brand should be embarrassed to put their name in the door.

I decided to have a quick lunch alone at Panera and I was super impressed with all of the employees. The young lady on the register was delightful and very helpful with my order, the manager was super nice and handing out food in the pick up station, and there was a very nice gentleman walking around asking if everything was okay. I’ll definitely being coming back to this location.

More sanitary conditions and terrible customer service. The drive up people need to pay more attention to what they are doing.

I’ve never been inside this location but they ALWAYS get my drive thru order right.
The food is quick and fresh.
No complaints from me. Will definitely be back.
Side note the drive thru setup is a little weird but I guess that did what they had to do in the small space they had to do it in.

Bad service at this location, especially the drive-​thru. They have customers sit in handicapped parking while their order is being prepared.

Absolutely awful. It doesn’t matter what time it is. I’ve been here at 11am, 1pm, 2pm, 4pm or 5pm and it’s still awful. The slowest Panera that ever exists, is right here on 191^st street. Word of advice, pick up the pace!

This location always seems to find ways to disappoint. Most Panera locations pride themselves on accuracy and timeliness, however, every single time I’ve been here, something goes wrong. Cold food, receiving incorrect food, and extremely long wait times (45+ min. for soup and a sandwich) top the list.
My recommendation to management would be to not be afraid to fire staff if they don’t meet performance standards. There are plenty who need jobs and are willing to work hard, so get rid of the dead weight employees who are just standing around or who can’t seem to prepare food like other locations do.
I’ve tried calling the corporate number but my message, as well as many other customers, aren’t being taken to heart. There is something fundamentally wrong with this location. So if you’re someone looking for a good experience, I’d go elsewhere. They’re running out of free bakery items to give for their mistakes.

I don’t leave a lot of reviews. This one is warranted. This Panera is putting a bad face on them all and I LOVE PANERA! The manager has no motivation or sense of service. Her poor team was running around trying to gain control while she stood there, literally in their way. She refused to leave the counter to look for an upset customer and apologize. I had to tell the ladies that she was looking for them so they could get their food after an HOUR… at Panera. An HOUR to put soup in a bread bowl!!! Then I got my Soba Noodle bowl sans noodles… which would have been better than the rock solid undercooked ball they filled the void with.
I will give credit to the team. They were doing their best with no leadership.

Since I live close, I was ecstatic when this Panera was built, and I go there regularly (several times a week)
I added the mobile app and almost always use the Rapid Pick-​up Order option (at this location and downtown Chicago).
There were some initial growing pains, but with only one exception, I and my family have consistently received great food and timely service.
Among the employees I’ve been most impressed with at this location are Paige-​Joanne, Jill, Summer, and William.