Panera Bread

This is Panera Bread. You’ve obviously got your typical healthy fast food options here.
Service here is quite fast. I ordered through the kiosk rather than at the cashier, and my relatively large order came out in just a few minutes.
However, there’s a big reason why this place gets three stars. The men’s restroom here is quite bad. While the seating areas in the restaurant seem to be relatively clean, the restroom is quite the opposite. Very bad smells, wet, sticky floor, and generally flat out disgusting. If it’s not an emergency, wait until you get somewhere else to use their restroom.

I have been coming to Panera for YEARS, and their food is very dependable. Its my son’s go to «fast food» restaurant. I almost always order the two for option, which is half a sandwich and soup or salad. This last visit I had a Caesar Salad and Frontega Chicken Panini. I had never had this panini before, and I’ve had many, but I really liked this one… We sat outside, and enjoyed a great lunch!

You need more staff. Coffee is always out and you have no signal to let you know when it is empty. Same goes for the milk and cream. Saturday morning should have more than 1 person behind the counter

I have long been a fan of Panera Bread Co., having visited many of its locations in New Jersey and outside of the state on soccer expeditions and shopping trips. When we decided to grab a quick bite prior to a family bowling outing in North Brunswick a week ago, we figured it was a pretty safe bet to be as satisfying an experience as it always has. Was I ever wrong!
We skated right up to the counter to order with no line (so far, so good). My wife ordered the wonton bowl, and I got half a turkey and cheese sandwich with chips and a lemonade. The wait wasn’t long and our food was brought to our table using one of those electronic homing devices they give you to take to your seat. Then the trouble started.
My wife liked her soup alright, but for nine bucks a bowl, she’d better have! As for my sandwich… imagine buying those blister-​packed cold cuts sliced an eighth-​inch too thick (Oscar Meyer comes to mind) in the supermarket, and plopping a few slices on thick-​sliced whole-​grain bread with a gigantic border of crust that had the texture of three-​day-​old plywood and tasted about like it, too. Slather on some mysterious dressing, add a bag containing about ten hard-​as-​a-​rock «kettle» potato chips, and there you had the recipe for… disappointment. Oh, the lemonade was fine, if you don’t mind waiting in an alley between the booths and the kitchen window (and uncomfortably adjacent to the restrooms) to fill up. It reminded me of the Port Authority bus terminal in NYC, and not in a good way.
All in all, I was hugely disappointed that a chain restaurant that had made its bones originally by trying its hardest (and succeeding) to be as non-​chain-​restaurant as possible had fallen so hard and miserably to earth after such a promising start all those years ago. Needless to say, I won’t be back.

Tomato soup is really good. Chicken salad sandwich is okay. Mango smoothie wasn’t good.

You can never go wrong with panera bread. Always consistent, great customer service, and quick service. This morning I just went in for a cookie– you have to admit their bakery is amazing! I got my usually chocolate chip cookie, but they had a new gluten free cookie. There’s no name to it, at least I didn’t see but it has chocolate chips, peanut butter, oatmeal, cranberries, and nuts! It was so delicious. I wasn’t too keen about trying it when I heard cranberries but with the peanut butter taste it worked out! Love it. So I found my new sugar fix! I’ll post a pic next time, This time I was so excited to try it, that I ripped open the bag and stuffed my face.

This is my to go to Panera Bread. The staff is always very friendly. If I order something off the menu, and I then realize that item is not what I though it would taste like, they will replace it for something else. It’s a nice atmosphere. Can get crowed during breakfast and lunch time.

Alice assisted me on the new self-​order tablets and she was an absolute delight! She was extremely knowledgeable about each entrée and answered every question I had! Plus she recommended great vegetarian options! Can’t wait to come back, she gave new meaning to service with a smile!!!

Used to come here all the time before they opened one up in EB closer to me and now when I need a sandwich/​soup/​salad fix, I go there. But I’ve always liked this location. Doesn’t seem as big or spread out as the one in Edison, but a lot less rowdier than the one in EB.
Love sitting in the booths in the back, or the tables all the way in the back on the wall near the bathrooms, seem so private and hidden. Good for doing homework, or having a cozy meal with a special someone.
Same décor as all the Paneras and the usual quality of food (assembly of a sandwich, tossing of a salad, and pouring bags of soup into the tins to be heated) is great! I think it’s pricey, and you don’t really get your money’s worth. For example, a panini is all bread — even stingy on the cheese, and DEFINITELY stingy with the meat. I have always loved their iced blended drinks. Those suckers are filling. My dad goes there fairly regularly and always fills up on coffee.
Staff is young — high school or college aged people at the registers. Not always the fastest or most efficient workers, but they are usually pleasant and offer up a smile.
The wifi is pretty good.

I been coming to his Panera for a few months now, and so far they had been pretty good, but today I had to wait over 10 minutes for a cup of dark roast coffee.
If you are going to make your clients wait that long for a cup of coffee, you might as well offer something to make up for the wait.
I work nearby and normally I just run in an out, waiting for that coffee wasn’t OK. At least they could have apologized or give me a treat or a coupon or something for making me wait.
I am not happy about their service today.

Nice place, great employees, overpriced food, but good. Give out larger portions, don’t be cheap. ALSO, change the design of your men’s room. The door closes very slowly & I don’t want to walk by & see a guy urinating as I walk back to table. Stupid design, urinal should be in back.

Walked in planning on ordering one of their pastries. However, I saw a fly on one of the cookies. I lost my appetite and left after that.

I’m really starting to wonder why people go to Panera, any Panera. You get hardly any food at all! I ordered a Pick 2 combo to go for lunch: the broccoli cheddar soup and chicken avocado cobb salad for $ 9 (btw avocado is a regular cobb salad ingredient. They list it like it’s something special). The salad container is small to begin with, but it was only filled slightly more than half way and included 1 piece of avocado and 1 tiny cup of dressing (it honestly had maybe 1 teaspoon of dressing in it). I’m not one of those people that eats salad with no dressing so that was kinda ruined. The soup was ok, but not worth 3.79.
I also noticed the bread loaves in the baskets behind the registers… over 17 bucks for a single loaf. Really?
Some nicer fast food restaurants (not sure what else to call places like Panera and Chipotle) are worth the higher prices but Panera is definitely not one of them.

My favorite Panera store is the one in Princeton, but since the store on Route 1 is closer to my house I decided to make a quick lunch stop here. I wanted to eat something nice and light, so I ordered the Chicken Caesar Salad and Tomato Soup, while my boyfriend ordered a regular size Tomato Soup. We were in a rush, and did manage to get our food pretty quickly. The portion sizes were perfect, and the food tasted as good as usual. I’ve been craving the tomato soup, and it was on point as always.
The only reason I’m giving this 3 stars is because the tables weren’t clean. I had to use a napkin to wipe away crumbs and spilled food myself. I checked at least five tables in the surrounding area and they were all dirty. There was also a fly that kept buzzing around in our area. Overall, the food is great but someone needs to tidy up more often.

Worst service I’ve ever experienced. I used to come to this location every week cause it was on the way to something for me, but I’ll never go back. I literally go out of my way to get food so I can avoid this terrible location. Employees do the BARE minimum and don’t know how to treat regular customers.

Not very well kept seating area.
Flies resting on the bakery items.
Orders often not correct.

My first time at this particular Panera and it was terrible. I ordered online (which worked fine). I arrived around 5 min after it was scheduled to be ready. It was not ready and I had to find someone to go check on the order. After around 5 minutes they handed me a bag. It was short a beverage and a menu item. After telling the staff member, she sighed and got the missing items, clearly not caring at all. I wasn’t offered any kind of compensation (such as a free pastry item) for the order being late or incorrect even though there is a sign right on the pick up tray saying that is the policy.
This food was for my sick wife, so I was in more of a hurry to get it to her than to try to get a free cookie. Never going to this terrible Panera again.

Just wanted coffee. Went to the counter and paid for two empty cups, and you have to get it yourself then. Okay, so that’s how it works. (Oh, and funny how they were so friendly to the previous customers. I smelled racism.) Well, I was just handed these cups with no comment nor warning. Well, unbeknownst to me there was a little sign at the coffee stand that there may be «limited selections» later in the day. Um… it was like 3 pm, not 10 pm. Not exactly an unreasonable time for getting coffee (um… like is Starbucks closing now? I think not.)
It looked like there were usually 6 choices for coffee, but right now there were 3, and one of the three was completely empty. All that was available was one decaf and a gross flavored coffee. That’s not limited selection, that’s no selection. I had to talk… argue with two employees before they agreed they needed to make more coffee. Definitely racism and/​or homophobia. Took a while but they brought out two new selections so obviously they had let the supply fall way below what it should have been, even in the ungodly-​late-​coffee-​drinking-​hour of 3 pm. Fortunately I was hanging there for a while to meet someone but otherwise I would have asked for a refund and gone elsewhere. The coffee was certainly better than Starbucks (blech!) but not worth the hassle. I guess McDonald’s is the best coffee experience in this area?!

Another Panera that I will not be going back to. I picked up my sandwich from my plate and everything fell out. Here and at other locations, they do such a sloppy job of making a sandwich. And it is not cheap either. For what they charge they should bus your table for you too. I realize they are trying to get you out quickly but the lack of attention to detail is disheartening.

I am beyond shocked at the portion sizes of the pasta. I paid $ 5.09 for tortoilli Alfredo and it is so small! Outrageous prices