@$%&*@$%($ Panera!!

Posted on | June 30, 2005 | 6 Comments

My history with Panera is not a good one. It seems to span stores, from the one at the Milennia mall (near where I work) to the one near Lake Eola. Do you know that the problem is? Attention spans. See there’s little follow through with their customer service. And I am telling you, this is a company problem, not just a store problem. When I go (which is not terribly often these days because of my past experiences) I get one of 2 things. Either A) a bacon turkey bravo, no tomato, on a sourdough baguette or B) broccoli cheddar soup with an extra roll (which I pay $0.35 for). This is not rocket science, people! Every time I go to Panera, they either argue with me about the extra roll, or they put my sandwich on the wrong bread, or they forget to make the sandwich at all (this happened twice at the Lake Eola location) and I have to have a hissy just to get fed.
Well today I was craving a sandwich. I thought “what the hell, this Panera has to be on the ball. They are at Milennia!” Wrong.
I was the only person in the damn place that was trying to order. Order taken, without too much difficulty (I had to explain twice that I wanted a sourdough baguette, not the nasty bread the sandwich comes on, and NO tomato) and I took my cup for iced tea and peered at the time 11:07. Good. Plenty of time to get back to work. The place is less than 5 minutes away from my desk (especially because I speed) so there was plenty of time…yeah. 11:15. Five people who came in after me have now sat down with their food. They are preparing a large order for someone involving multiple bags and lots of soup and salad. I start scowling, cutting eyes at everyone behing the counter. 11:25. A line has formed at the register. There is a crowd of people around me. Customer after customer walks away, beaming, because they have their food. I am starving. My stomach grumbles. A man next to me looks over, and I grimace. I can’t bring myself to smile. 11:30 More people eat. I’ve had enough. Waving my reciept like a flag, I appeal to the one person who seems to know what is going on in the place. “I’m sorry, but I’ve been waiting 20 minutes for my sandwich. Do you have an order for Erica?” She looks sadly at me. She must see the hunger on my face. “No, but what did you have? I’ll make it right now.”
Five minutes later I exit Panera, sandwich in a brown bag, and $5.75 in my pocket. The cost of my sandwich. And apparently, the cost of waiting 20 minutes for a bacon turkey bravo……

They still put tomatoes on the damn thing.

But my stomach isn’t grumbling anymore. That’s something.

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