Panera Bread

This is my least preferred Panera Bread. The food is good, but the service is terrible. I had a past encounter with a lady manager and she was just not very pleasant. I had asked for chips with my sandwich and they made a mistake and gave me an apple instead. I didn’t notice until I was in my car so I had to come back into the store to fix the error. When I alerted her of the mistake she gave me the chips and rolled her eyes. She walked away without apologizing so I also walked away as well, and as I walked out of the door she came running after me asking for the apple that they wrongfully put in my bag! It was their mistake and they couldn’t give up one apple as a nice gesture and to make up for the inconvenience. She also made a scene about it as if I stole the apple or something… SMH.
They also get my order wrong every time. (Leave out the cilantro… for crying out loud. This homegirl is not fond of cilantro! Is that too hard to ask?) Anyway, the employees are also not friendly and very unhelpful when I dine in. It feels like by asking them a question or telling them that they made a mistake in my order is my fault. Not to mention, finding parking is a challenge.

Love the Rapid Order. Indeed no lines and really rapid. Placed order from App, drive by and the food is in a bag with my name. So useful and efficient. Now if only the parking is that easy too. Then it would be just right.

Usually I can expect a standard, satisfactory Panera experience in terms of service and quality, and I’m never disappointed. However, tonight at this location near the BART, I ordered a «You-​Pick-​Two» and they only gave me half my order! Sadness.
I waited awhile to see if it was just coming a little later, but then I finally had to chase down a server who wordlessly pointed me to a guy behind the counter who was either too frazzled or tired for polite conversation (much less an apology). I wasn’t angry or demanding, and I was just happy to get my hastily-​thrown-​together sandwich, but I was pretty let down with tonight’s Panera experience and the lack of friendliness.
Food, however, was excellent as always, and it wasn’t crowded or hard to find parking at that hour, surprisingly.

I order online frequently for my office with no complaints. The service here is great. I love the seating arrangement which is comfy. But the parking situation is so not well planned (not Panera’s fault). Just be careful backing into the In-​n-​Out drive thru line that forms over yonder.

Typical rapid pickup experience today at this location.
Grab bag so I can quickly get back to work
Get to work and notice my fruit cup I paid extra for is not there
Accept my loss and open salad box
Notice no dressing is inside
Hate everything and everyone involving this location

*This review is strictly on their online ordering.
I’ve probably ordered online at least a dozen times ranging from small to large orders and the food is always available and waiting when it says it will be. Food is typical Panera, which is great. Again, great work on the online service, makes things super convenient.

Great food! But make sure to have your valuables hidden in your cars, I had my car window smashed and my school backpack taken right outside the place.

Good Service
Great comfort food
Thank you

I come here often and forget to check in a lot of times. Its on my way to work and on my way back from thr gym… I try to get different things each time but I end up coming back to get bagels for the office or their french baguette sliced and if you put butter on top, heavenly!
I’ve been getting the strawberry banana smoothie lately, it’s not too sweet and you can taste the strawberry and bananas. They use low fat organic yogurt with it.
Their poppy seed strawberry salad with chicken is good when they have it in the summer. I’ve had their pesto pasta, it’s a little too cheesy for me but otherwise it’s good! Their chicken noodle soup is sweet, there’s a lot of chicken and noodles!
Bagels on tuesday only 6.99, what a good deal! Wish they rotate it on different days!

Signed up today for their app, placed an order and was promised a free dessert. Picked up my order, get back to my car no dessert. They lie.

I’ve tried their Napa Almond Chicken Salad Sandwich, Smoked Turkey Sandwich and their Tuna Salad Sandwich and loved them all! They were all tasty! I’ll definitely eat their sandwiches again!
Their Toffee Nut Cookie is yummy too!

This review is for catering only.
I ordered about $ 80 worth of bagels and pastries to be delivered no later than 8am for a school function. I ordered several days ahead to make sure this could be done.
On the day of the function I waited outside for the delivery, stressing out as the time goes past 8. Finally the delivery gets there… 25 minutes late. By this time school had started so the breakfast couldn’t even happen. :(
I called to speak to the manager, hoping for some nice apology and at least a partial refund. Instead, the delivery driver WAS the manager, who only refunded the $ 20 delivery fee and argued that she was less late than she was.
I will never use Panera for a delivery again.
I am so disappointed that I spent so much money for something that was too late to even use for the reason it was ordered.

Here is where you can get a fast food sandwich made with good bread and have some good coffee. I like the sausage breakfast sandwich. The sandwich is always good enough to satiate my hunger and keep me eating because it tastes pretty good.
I also like their sourdough bread — though it’s a hassle sometimes to get it sliced as the slicer isn’t working right or the one working the machine isn’t very good at it. I think there is a fear of getting a thumb in there with the bread. That happened when I was a kid at the local bakery. It was the talk of the town! Guy loses his thumb in the bread slicer!

Great service, good food.

Quick fresh and easy. No special requests here… most items come mostly pre-​prepared.
I like the variety and the low fat soups are delish.
Plus they have diet caffeine free pepsi (I know brown water but I still like it).

If you know me you know that I LOVE PANERA. I’m obsessed. Maybe I just went to this one at the wrong time. It was dinner time and the place was packed. All 3 people on the registers were newly training and each of them was making mistakes and taking extra time — this is totally ok, I’ve been a trainee and a trainer before so I know this struggle– but it probably wasn’t best to put them both on registers during the dinner rush. It ended up taking 15 minutes to get my food which is FOREVER in panera time, usually everything is ready in less than 5.
and my order was wrong. hopefully they are able to pull it together bc I’d like to come back!

I was about to give this Panera Bread a 2, but I can’t downgrade their score just cause of poor planning in parking and the VERY busy In-​n-​Out that trapped my car in its parking spot.
I was waiting for the bf to arrive at SFO. It was so windy yesterday that I’m sure the delay was because of it. Well I needed a place to sit and well… relieve myself as I have been drinking a lot… of water ;) these days. So I saw that a Panera was near by. I did contemplate sitting in In-​n-​Out, but figured I didn’t want to smell like burgers.
This is a fairly sized Panera and had 2 stalls in the women’s bathroom. It was ok in terms of cleanliness. The seating area was good. They had a couple long tables and what I really liked was the two person small booths. I was able to snag one in the corner and just chill for an hour and a half.
It’s definitely a nice place to sit in rather than the cell phone sitting area in San Bruno. Consider getting a pastry and a drink and you’ll be waiting for your loved ones in style.

The Magic Loogie…
I’m a fan of Panera Bread. My family has enjoyed the salads, sandwiches and soups… as well as the casual atmosphere and friendly service at many of their restaurants across the US.
However, this brief review is not about those experiences. It’s about what happened at the Panera Bread in Millbrae.
After dropping my mother off at the San Francisco airport, I decided to look for a hot drink on a cold rainy day in early December. When I saw the sign for Panera Bread just off Highway 101 a short distance south of the airport, I thought my prayers were answered.
I had a simple request. Hot chocolate with extra foam. The young guy behind the counter taking orders offered a quizzical look which implied «that’s something the staff might not know how to do», but he stepped up and said «I’ll take care of it myself». Mission accomplished?
I went to the restroom and returned 5 minutes later. I didn’t see my drink and the guy who took the order was slicing a large number of bagels for another customer. Ten minutes later, my drink appeared in the area where servers pick up food for delivery to people sitting at tables.
I walked through the rain back to my car and eagerly opened the lid. It was the worst hot chocolate ever made. The milk was scalded so hot until it became the thinnest liquid you could imagine. There was no taste. Needless to say, foam could not survive such a beating. Oh, but they did have a bit of whipped cream on top… about the size and shape of a something stuck in your throat during a bad cold.
I guess I should have skipped the bathroom and make sure the order-​taking guy actually made my drink instead of passing it off to somebody on the kitchen line.
I’d normally give Panera Bread in Millbrae 1 star, but I’ll add a 2^nd for the fond memories of past visits to other Paneras.

So the you pick two combo is a no brained. Soup and salad or pasta. Yummy soups. Coffee is alright. Nothing to write home about but will do in the cold weather. Place is very clean, you order and they bring you your food. Minus one star for seeing several flies over the baked goods. But I just have the coffee. And I am usually am not here this late. 1600hrs. Friendly staff. Smiles. Nice place to meet and free WiFi.

Right across from the busy Millbrae BART & Caltrain Station, this location gets hella busy. The only place busier is In-​N-​Out Burgers located right next door.
They actually have a (sort of) parking lot attendant who helps direct the insane amount of cars going in and out of this parking lot. For those who might not know, the parking wasn’t bad at all years ago. But after they added the car wash, the entire parking situation has gotten worse. I only go here if I absolutely *have* to. Otherwise, I’ll just go to the plethora of choices right off of El Camino Real, which is just one light over, pass the train station on your right. To avoid parking issues, park on the side streets & walk over. Easy Peasy.
I ordered the Turkey Cranberry Sandwich with Cranberry Sauce on the side. But they put Cranberry Sauce inside the sandwich and it looked like they used a generous amount too. I had to send my order back and had them make me another one to my liking. Unfortunately, the new order had very little turkey in it. They put a lot of spinach inside. I was on lunch, like most of their customers at the time, so I didn’t want to send the second order back as well.
I felt so ripped off! For almost $ 9, they could’ve put more turkey inside the sandwich. I’m don’t want more than what they normally put, but the second order had LESS turkey than the one I just sent back. At the least they could’ve put the same amount in the second sandwich…
Not sure if I’d ever go back there again. Actually, let me take that back. I’ll go there again specifically to have a brief discussion about my experience with the manager on duty that day.
* I paid using my phone — have been doing that for almost five years — and the employee working there almost freaked out as if I was from the future. She was like «Wow! How did you do that? I didn’t know you can do that!» She told me I’m the first person *ever* to use my phone like that here.