Panera Bread

The service was fast as expected. Seems to be quite here but the bagel was fresh and coffee was hot and fresh. Heard bad things about this restaurant but I had a good experience. Just don’t believe everything you hear, someone may have been having a bad day. Come on in and enjoy!

This review is actually from my wife. We’ve eaten at many Panera Bread restaurants around the country. We always enjoyed them and were happy to see one being opened in Flowood. But after my wife and daughter ate there they both told me not to waste my time with this one. It was not good. I’ll eventually check it out for myself. If it’s better I’ll revise my rating. If it’s as bad as they said I’ll drop it to a single star.

This was our very first visit to Panera. The service was great and the cashier was very knowledgable and helpful. The food was delicious. The portions were perfect. The food came out timely and was the perfect temperature. The bread was so good. I can not emphasize this enough. The rest of the food was very good too. Our only complaints are things that Panera probably really has no control over. We did not like having to walk through the «kid» section to go to the restroom. Maybe all Paneras are set up this way? And this one is set up very awkwardly with the drive-​through. It made me very uncomfortable to walk through when parking and entering and exiting the store. But overall, an excellent experience. We loved the food and will recommend it and be repeat customers.

Stopped to get a loaf of their Honey Wheat bread and bagels, they had one loaf of bread and maybe 6 bagels. My server Octavia was very helpful and polite. However, bread was not fresh it was hard throughout, possibly a couple days old. Very disappointed in this location. Supposedly their bread truck had not run. I had several people say that this location wasn’t that great, very surprised. Will take the extra time and go to other location next time.

Yes! So happy we got Panera Bread! Only wish this place was bigger! Parking is difficult. The speed of delivery of food needs to be faster. Food is about the same as any other Panera location.

This is the 2^nd time we have tried it and the last. We waited 28 minutes for 3 sandwiches. My order was wrong for the 2^nd time.

So glad they opened this in flowood. However, caution when purchasing any discount cards. THERE IS ALWAYS A CATCH. Purchased a 52 meal card and every time I have tried to use at both locations they either do the know what to do, or mark something that is not correct. Apparently the souffles are not a bakery item and count as an entrée (the manager also began describing the ingredients saying eggs are not sweet so they don’t consider it a bakery item)!! Sucks that they make everything so difficult to redeem.

I hate to give such a poor rating to a chain that is so loved by its groupies but this was not a good experience at all.
To start they got the order wrong. Then it took several minutes to get someone to pay attention and offer to fix it. It was nice that they offered a «treat to eat» while the order was being fixed but not as nice when no one actually gave it to me.
Price is an issue too. The portion sizes are a little on the small side while the prices are on the «holy crap did I just pay $ 15 for a sandwich combo??» $ 30 for a lunch date with my wife seems steep.
Then again I thought, «The way people are freaking out about us getting a Panera means the food is going to change the way I feel about sandwiches.» It did the opposite actually. It was bland. Bland bland bland. Nothing had any taste at all. The Turkey avocado BLT tasted like nothing at all. Even the bacon was tasteless. For desert we had a cinnamon roll. It was all bread.
I think this comes down to taste though. It did taste exactly as though I had bought the ingredients and made it fresh at the house. Everything was very fresh.
All in all I will not be going back. Not with Newks and Which Wich within a stones throw of this place.

I love Panera. They have some of the best fresh baked breads in Mississippi. The Asiago loaf and morning soufflés are delicious! Got to get them fresh though. I’m so glad that we have one right by my work now so I can get my fresh baked breads without having to drive to Ridgeland.
The whole idea of Panera is being able to eat healthier. Most of their meals are under 700 calories. It might not be as much meat, cheese or taste, but you can eat without the guilt. I can come here and pretty much pick anything off of the menu and know that I’m not killing my diet for the day. Panera is definitely for the more health concious.
They advertised the one year free of panera for the first 52 people to donate, which I did. It’s a little misleading because they’re not actually all full meals, there’s 5 slots of bagel and coffee, bakery sweet and coffee, a sandwich… that’s already 15 slots of my meal card. It’s still totally worth it, but I don’t like when a company isn’t completely honest with their customers. Some managers know about the 1 year meal card, some managers don’t, so their communication definitely needs some work. Some managers let u get the latte as your coffee and some managers didn’t. I hate bagels and I’m not huge on sweets at all, I couldn’t even switch that out for something of equal price, so I basically gonna waste ¼ of my card. =(
Their service is great though, super friendly. The front end manager is always really nice. She remembered me only after 3 times of being there. =) Zach I think is the other manager, he’s awesome too! I love coming here as you can see