Panera Bread

Panera is Panera. A little overpriced, but the food is good. I feel like every year there's less meat on the paninis though. Nice that they still have free wifi. Smoothies aren't great. Meh. Broccoli Cheddar soup is always amazing. Bagel boxes are great for work.

Service at this particular location is good. I take issue with the fact that their manager is so concerned with loyalty card stats he doesn't even ask if you have one--he just scans a random one at the register. Irritated me since I actually do have one and intended on adding it online later. Couldn't since he'd just scanned some random card. Panera is new to the loyalty card game...he'll find out eventually from corporate that you can't just scan random cards...

Mrs S here...
I waffled about where to go for lunch and decided on this place based on their bean soup and caprese sandwich.  When we arrived, they did not have my soup today.  I was ready to leave at that point but Ben made the point that since we were so ambivalent in the first place I should just find something here and be done.
The cashier overheard this, suggested a different soup, and offered to let me sample all of them until I found one I was happy with.  

Then she informed Ben that he qualified for a free espresso drink or smoothie.  He deferred to me and I wasn't sure what to pick.  The cashier again suggested one that she likes and backed it up with an offer to comp it and replace it if I didn't like it.  
I ended up with a pick two combo of caprese panini, chicken noodle soup, and a super fruit smoothie.  Food was up to par as usual; it was the service that made the visit remarkable.  

I like to think that my being so particular about what I like (read picky) has contributed to Ben attaining elite status this year...  ;-)

Typically a fan, but today... Blech!  The soup was OK, but the half sandwich looked and tasted like it had sat around for a while.  And the place is a bit 'Lord of the Flies', I felt like I was in a barn.  Not cool.  Especially when there's a splatted fly carcass on a bar in the restroom and you had to fight the swarm to use the facilities.