Panera Bread

I absolutely enjoy their salads and soups! They are amazing and leave you satisfied. Customer service is also great!

Let me just say that I love Panera food, all of it. But this particular location is notorious for two things, first is never having seats available because of people who take up the space for wifi usage. Second is for always messing up the order, unless you verify you want bread with your order and not chips or completely forgetting soups on a pick 2 once you’ve already driven home. They apologize yes but it’s completely unacceptable when it happens more than once.

First time in years. Just as I remembered from our college days. My husband and I went here when other salad places (like Honeygrow) were closed due to the winter blizzard that attacked the city the day prior. Panara was shoveled out and in full operation.
I love the new feature to order your food on the new-​er? touchscreen iPad type devices. This made for the one who likes to customize orders, very user friendly and I was a very happy customer. I was impressed with the freshness of the salad and thought the chicken wasn’t too salty for the fast foodish style food. Avocado was nice and fresh too. And a great portion. The hubby got a panini sandwich and he kind of got confused by the customizable options on the touchscreen because of how many choices he had for bread selections, etc. which I can understand if you are new (or re-​new) to the menu item and just want the classic version. Was there an easy kid button for classic way that we missed?
All in all, satisfying lunch at a good price.

Perfect, perfect pit stop in Hoboken.
Yes, please remember this is in Hoboken. If you come during lunch hours or after school hours, expect children of all kinds of ages and noise levels.
But also remember that this is Panera. Great food, warm atmosphere. Did I mention really, really good food? As a college student, this is a dream for me. Healthy, close by, and not that pricy. I love it here. It’s a savior from my cafeteria’s frozen buffet, and a refreshing break from the other more pricy and/​or greasy places in Hoboken that sell themselves in adverts but disappoint you on the plate, in the plastic basket, etc. It’s also pretty well kept.
One of the key things here, though, is the service. They’re just so friendly! Arthur, especially. He takes the time to get to know his regular customers and what they usually order (without their online preferences, he doesn’t cheat!) AND he just honestly puts the customer first, always. The people who work here are real people; funny while professional, friendly without being creepy. Good service AND good food? Damn, that’s how restaurants should be.

The coffee here is hit or miss. It’s almost never hot enough, something true of just about every Panera I’ve ever been to. The temperature is only close to okay when fresh coffee is brought out, which seems to happen around here very infrequently.
Why can’t Panera get coffee right? How hard is that? Seriously, if you like coffee, go somewhere else.
Other than that, the place is not always clean and the food is mediocre yet pricey (again, true of all Panera locations). The saving grace here is the staff. They’re friendly, helpful, and pleasant.
I’m drinking lukewarm coffee yet again as I write this. I only came in here because the Starbuck’s next door was full.

Wow. Just wow. I have never experienced or witnessed so much calamity at a Panera Bread before.
How was the food you ask? It was great. However the front of house service left much to be desired. I don’t know where the blame should be directed. PB customer service training? The local school district?
The total for my delicious meal came up to 10.99. I gave the cashier a $ 20 bill and then found a dollar and said «Here’s a dollar so that I can get back a $ 10 bill.» Gadzooks. You da thought the girl’s brain was computing the most difficult linear problem on earth. She called a manager over and told her the «situation» and followed up saying «…so, do I give her back $ 8?»
Whoa Nelly!
During this time, the manager is also handling a customer complaining about the iced green tea. After settling the bill, I noticed that the cashier had mistakenly rung up the customers order behind me. She too is asking for the difference of a whole sandwich from the half sandwich she actually asked for. Another «manager guy» comes over and all I hear the customer saying is ‘I don’t want that, I want what I ordered”. They were trying to get her to purchase a different ½ sandwich to make it a whole. Then after strongly suggesting her change, the manager guy couldn’t compute the customers returned change. The customer said to him «you aren’t making any sense». She decided to just order a baked good in exchange for ongoing confusion.
Meanwhile (as Im eating) the first manager is on the phone and I hear her disputing an order saying «we didn’t deliver your order late… we called the number you gave us and no one picked up.
This was so horrible that I’ll just have to blame this one on a full moon.

I was very surprised to see how dirty this place is. The set up/​design of this place is off. The tables are sticky, floor dirty, and there are crumbs everywhere. I agree, there do seem to be many homeless people hanging around. The employees appeared a bit unkept (dirty noses, chapped lips) idk presentation wasn’t the best.
I came to dine in but decided to take my soup to go. Upon eating half of it I found a straight black hair in my soup… seemed to be from someone’s beard or mustache? IDK but absolutely disgusting… never again.

So here’s the thing about Panera. I like their food and the service is fine but their portion sizes, like almost every place, is getting smaller and you’re paying more for it. For example, I used to love the black bean soup, but at some point I was getting 2 black beans with every scope. I think the last time I had it, I could’ve counted the number of beans in the cup (I’m guess I had 17 beans total). Did black beans go up that much that they have to ration them? The soufflés are awesome but they’re over $ 5, and they take them out of the window by 11am; I guess they’re in a hurry to throw them away. Idk Panera. Step it up, or you’ll be stepping out!

While in the abstract I love Panera, this location is pretty ratchet. Not because of the workers or food — here, it’s pretty standard fare and the workers are always pleasant. It has a lot of seating and if you’re extraordinary lucky (or deaf), you could manage to study here.
The main problem is its patrons. It is baby central with young, bougie parents shirking their responsibilities to other customers in order to try and enjoy their bread bowls. Perhaps Hoboken should open a Chuck E. Cheese as that’s how these parents are treating this restaurant. Babies scream at the top of their lungs, toddlers sprint back and forth through the restaurant, and parents try as hard as they can to ignore their own children’s outbursts.
In general, I’m sure the space is wonderful during business hours, but avoid if you’re looking for evening or weekend respites as you won’t be able to hear your partner’s conversation over the din that is unmanaged children.

place is great
too bad it’s Hoboken’s homeless shelter

We stopped in for lunch and were pretty disappointed with our meal.
Décor: It’s a Panera, no surprises. However, I will note that it is pretty large (for a Hoboken restaurant). There are a decent amount of tables.
Bathroom: Standard as well.
Staff: Everyone was nice and our food was ready in a semi-​quick manner (it was not very busy while we were there).
Food: I had the Asian salad and it was pretty pathetic. It consisted of the bottom 2/​3rds of a head of iceberg lettuce (the white and light green/​yellow part) and some nuts sprinkled in. The chicken was fine but there was not a lot, of it given that I had the «whole» serving, but there was not much dressing at all. We also had the Pick 2 — a steak sandwich and ceasar salad. The salad had the same issues and the sandwich was nothing to write home about.
Value: We didn’t pay much, about what you would expect, but it seems we got what we paid for… Even though it didn’t set us back much it still feels like we got the short end of the stick here.
I certainly will not be coming back after this meal.

Most franchised coffee shops seem to follow the fast food model of ushering as many customers in-​and-​out as possible. The employees at the Panera Bread on Washington, however, seem to defy this standard as they continually remember who I am, what my usual order is, and go that extra step to ensure my experience is a good one. Hanna, Danny, and the whole team are a friendly, warm group of people.
This week, I came in for a coffee on a freezing rainy day, and I noticed a kid in line ahead of me, looking through his pockets for enough money for a cup of soup. The girl at the register told him he was still a dollar short, so I gave the kid a buck. The manager on-​duty noticed this and when she rang up my order, she informed me that my coffee was on her. When I questioned, she simply said, «pay it forward, right?»
I was truly touched.
With so many options on Washington Street alone, you can be sure this ambiance, friendliness, and consideration is what keeps me coming back to Panera bread.

This is one of the worst Paneras I’ve visited. There are homeless people sleeping in the booths. It doesn’t smell that great and is kind of dirty. I hadn’t gone for a while for those reasons, but I really wanted to try the chicken power bowl. The bowl is supposed to have vegetables, chicken, cilantro hummus, and lemon. I ordered it to go and when I got home the hummus was missing. Very annoying.

Its your typical Panera. No big surprises but has the positives you can usually expect: friendly and prompt service, sandwiches and bagels on demand, and plenty of seating and outlets.

Pass on the chicken Cobb.
I’d say yes to all the soups and sandwiches. Pass on the salads. Get the fountain drinks –hibiscus iced tea = heaven. The End.

Went there the day after St. Patrick’s to recover and get refreshed from a night out with my friends. The food was fantastic, as always, but what made me want to come to Unilocal and write this was their staff.
A pal of mine got a bread bowl soup and it was too salty. The manager came over randomly to ask how we were and she offered to get him an entirely new meal. Free.
It’s not really about getting a free meal and it’s not about the fact that the food was good/​bad (for the record it’s really good. . get the sierra turkey), it’s the fact that she cared enough to check up on us.
She knew we had a rough night. She knew my bud wasn’t feeling his best. She cared enough to check up on us and make sure we were all good and having the best experience we could.
This persons name was Lauren. I believe she was a manager (purple polo shirt), but can’t be sure. Lauren I have no idea if any of your staff or whomever runs this page, but consider this a personal, deep-​down thank you from my two pals and myself.
Thanks again Lauren.

Great for a quick salad or sandwich on the go. The coffee is pretty decent too, as are their soups.
I like the Mediterranean sandwich and ask for it grilled. Would like to see more vegetarian options in their sandwich selection.
And yes, most of the times, they have clean restrooms.

I find myself here and I may grab a croissant or a coffee. But friends visit me here in hobo for some reason, they always want to go to Panera Bread. I don’t understand why. Its a cult following. The place is just blah. I mean the sandwiches are pretty dry. Somehow I end up spending $ 20.00 bucks just on my food at this chain.
Plus side if you need to get away from your super annoying roommate from hell. I concede you win. There is Wi-​Fi, huge amount of seating, and soup with baguette.

Before I had kids, I was not a fan of Panera. Everything they sell is pretty mediocre. Especially if you’re in the NYC metro area, there are so many other options for bread, pastries, sandwiches, coffee, etc… why go to Panera?
After I had kids, I realized that stuff like bathrooms (bonus if there’s a changing table in there!), large tables, lots of seating, etc. were pretty important. Not deal breakers but after you continuously go to eateries without bathrooms or only have 3 tables in a tiny cramped space, it’s a breath of fresh air to go to a place like Panera.
The staff here have always been very nice. Good location.

Oh Panera. Let’s talk.
I don’t understand your layout at this location. Some days I get served at the bakery registers; some days I get served at the regular registers. I can never tell which one to wait for (and I usually end up picking the wrong one). And there always seems to be more employees than necessary … though I could be coming on off-​peak times so that’s probably on me.
The bigger problem is that on two occasions, a week apart, my to-​go dinner was incomplete. Avocado was forgotten on my Turkey & Avocado BLTs. Avocado! On both occasions I was too far from the restaurant by the time I discovered the mistake.*
I’m giving this spot the benefit of the doubt because I love their food. I had a lot of good, solid meals before The Avocado Incidents occurred. But I’m going to need a little consistency & a little organization to be able to come back from «tolerate,» to «like,» to «love.»
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* I should mention that Panera’s customer service is excellent. I notified them of the mistakes, & they responded immediately with apologies & promised to pass on the information to the appropriate people. Definitely a reason to give them another chance, don’t you think?