Panera Bread

it's very crowed, food are very expensive. a rumor leak from the insider...said they are not very clean when they prepare food.

Soup and a sandwich, tasty and reasonably priced

Let me start this review by stating that I do enjoy food from Panera and this review has to do with this specific location.

I recently stopped in this Panera location at 11:30 to beat the lunchtime crowds in an effort to quickly grab some food to bring back to the office.  The line ahead of me was relatively short, and the line quickly grew behind.

Once my order was placed ($9 for half a panini and a small mac and cheese), I moved down to wait by the pick up window.  A man packaged half of my order then disappeared for a minute.  In that minute that he walked away, the panini press sprung open indicating that my order was ready (hooray!).  At this point in time, a woman behind the counter looked me in the eye (I was literally the only person waiting for food) and picked up a spatula aimed for my panini.  I guess the aim of the spatula was a big off, and combined with a strong push it sent my $5 half of a sandwich flying into a bin of who-knows-what.  She picked it up, placed it on the spatula and left it on the counter before turning to look me in the eye once again.  30 seconds later the man returned, boxed the sandwich and called my name prompting me to ask "Excuse me, but is that bin clean? Because I just saw my sandwich in it."  He insisted that "No, the panini comes off of the press and was on this spatula on the counter..." and all this time the woman just stood there silent.  After some back and forth I discovered that it was a bin full of chicken.  

She knew it was my sandwich and she knew that I saw what happened.  Can you honestly tell me who wants to pay that much for food to have it bounce around in areas that it shouldn't be? How do I know that bin is clean? What if I were a vegetarian and my food fell in with chicken?

This is one poor customer service experience that has 100% lead to the loss of my business at this establishment, including group lunch outings that I am involved in with colleagues.  Thank you, Panera, for making this an easy decision for me.