Panera Bread

Always having been a Panera fan, I journeyed to the Quakertown location. Of course the food is delicious but you can always tell that the french baguettes are not fresh, and the customer service here is the worst I’ve experienced of any panera I have ever been to.

If you want to see how successful can be young adults with attention problems, you should not miss this lovely place. I enjoy food here, if I am lucky to get what I ordered.

Ah, the Quakertown Panera, a bastion of nutrition among a highway strewn with downtrodden diners, greasy pizzerias, and so many fast food joints that you can see their neon burn from high atop Melt’s Level 3 bar in Center Valley.
Yes, Panera is fast food too. They’ll insist that they’re «fast casual,» but I like to reserve that adjective for sweatpants and jorts. And while those two wardrobe items tend to be the preferred choice of Quakertownians, at this Panera you’re far more likely to see power-​suited realtors clacking on their laptops and Ugg-​booted college freshmen snickering over their iPhones.
The food is fine. Unlike most Quakertown restaurants, they serve vegetables, though their kale salads usually hit the plate with the greens still partially frozen. The bread is good. The soups have given me weird intestinal bubbling. I’ve never had any of their desserts. Usually I leave with the feeling of: «Well, I’m glad I didn’t eat at Bubba’s Potbelly Stove!» Note, not: «Boy, am I glad I ate at Panera!»
The real treat of this particular Panera though, is the people. For whatever reason, the nexus of 309 and 313 must have its own unique gravitational pull, drawing in a diverse and varied populous. During the times I’ve visited this location, I’ve overheard the following…
*A balding, middle-​aged man doing his damnedest to sell a high school baseball player on becoming a partner in Amway: «The owners of this company make a billion dollars a year. And they pass that on. They encourage that. Do you know about probiotics? You should know about probiotics. Amway sells them, you know.»
*A teenage employee (male) talking to another teenage employee (female) about when his friend took shrooms: «He showed up my house and told me that he fell asleep in somebody’s yard and that he didn’t know what was going on, but that he was tripping balls. And then he told me the same thing again.»
*A trio of teenagers (two female and one male) detailing the plot line of The Fast & The Furious series, in its entirety: «I mean the guy’s name is Vin Diesel how awesome of a name is that Vin Diesel except that it’s not really Vin Diesel it’s Mark Sinclair yeah that’s really his real name he was born Mark Sinclair crazy right?»
*One middle-​aged woman talking to herself. «Hmmf this is ooh umm uffff bread is errrr hmmf why can’t ooh ohh this chair hmmmmmm.»
There’s also pretty much always one family here who lets their kids suck back soda and go wild. These little maniacs will jump on the booths, climb the shutter features attached to the walls, roll around on the floor, and, once, I think I saw one ascend the flue of the faux fireplace. Watch your elbows as you eat that partially frozen kale salad.
And remind yourself: At least you didn’t eat at Bubba’s Potbelly Stove.

I have had very good experiences here also bet bad ones. It seems it depends on who’s working. If I go in the morning it’s great. At night really bad. If you want good food go in the morning. Stay way from here at night time. If it wasn’t for the service at night time I would have given 5 stars.

This location is one of the cleaner ones in the Lehigh Valley… even when it’s busy, they keep the tables clean. It’s kind of a pain to get into (that whole shopping center area is a bit of a mess) but a lot easier than heading to the Whitehall mall area. Just another Panera chain, but it’s one of my favorite fast casual… good soup, salad and sandwich choices and not horribly priced.
The only times I’ve had trouble was when preordering a meal via Rapid Pick-​Up. They will inevitably be out of something, and instead of calling you to ask how you would like to substitute it, they won’t say a word at all. You’ll get there, not see your food in the pick up area, and then have to wait in line for goodness knows how long (it gets busy around mealtimes) to be told to pick something else/​a different bread/​etc. Once they were completely out of bread (no idea how that happened), and another time they were out of the bread for that sandwich. So, so odd. And annoying to have to stand in line and wait for a meal that you’ve pre-​ordered for a specific pick up time.

A really nice and friendly place to meet friends and chat and eat great food, muffins by a warm fire

About the same as any other Panera. Lots of staff, but still some mistakes occasionally with orders. They do try to get it right and will give you a free cookie or something if they mess up. My biggest complaint is they often run out of stuff when I come here in the evening. Also they turn off the toaster, so it takes forever to get a simple toasted bagel. Manager seems nice and tries to help out. Food is pretty decent. Nothing to go crazy about. Soups and salads and sandwiches. Corner bakery has more interesting offerings, but Panera will do. I recommend the smoothies as well. They are quite good.

A chain counter service soup, sandwich and salad shop. Plus they have a baked goods counter. A bit more expensive than most, but healthier than most. They do accept credit cards and Apple Pay. Drive thru is available for those that need to grab and go. This particular one could be a little cleaner.

I know a lot of people are big on the Panera chain as a whole and I truly can’t wrap my head around why that is? I’ve now been to three and every time something has gone wrong between extreme indifference from the staff (in NYC) to the store not having a good portion of their menu available (Wayne, PA) and now this one which practices extreme portion control.
Allow me to expound.
Last Sunday I was in the area and following orders to pick up some kids meals and a «Pick Two» I ventured inside to take care of things. The ordering process was fine as the store was dead and the two kids at the register were just standing around talking.
The order is finally done and ready to go after a maybe fifteen minute wait which seemed too long considering that I’m the only one waiting for food and hardly anyone else is in the store.
Upon further review when I get the goods home there are problems.
Like Alex L. mentioned in his review the Turkey sandwich is miniscule. It maybe was slightly bigger than a hockey puck. That’s nice and all I suppose when you’re paying hockey puck prices but not at almost five bucks. For five bucks at Subway I could have put the lovely wife in a carb coma with a footlong.
Now you would think that would have been the only instance except it wasn’t. The accompanying soup also was maybe ²⁄₃ filled and the kids mac and cheese cups were also far less than filled.
Now mind you this bears no relation to the flavor of what was made as everything tasted fine but when you’re paying this kind of money you kind of expect full portions not portion control.
Never. Again.

For some reason people love this place so I gave it a try. $ 10 for a crappy grilled cheese and I have to serve myself?! Second time drive tru for breakfast I had a breakfast sandwich. Again over price and sucked!

I love their broccli and cheese soup being in the bread bowls. Soooo good. I have to agree, when I got the soup, the soup was just warm, wasn’t really hot.
Their bakery is pretty good, not going to lie. The cinnamon buns are pretty good, I think they are the most popular.
They also have a drive through that seems to be a plus. When we are on the run we don’t have to worry about having to go inside and ordering, we can just pull up with our car!
The service is pretty good too, and they’re not slow at all. Obviously it’s going to be a bit slow when they’re crowded, but that’s with most places.
It is a little pricey here though, so just keep that in mind while staring at the menu.

Ordered the pick two. Broccoli cheddar + Sierra Turkey. Not sure if its a trend with Panera but the Sandwich seemed smaller than it was at other locations. The sandwich was okay, just very small.
The soup was not too warm unfortunately. Not sure if they forgot to put my soup in the microwave or something.
The plus of this location is the amount of sun gets in here. They have large windows that allows a lot of natural light in.
Going to stick with the pastries and tea for now.

Very slow service, poor quality food. Hot panini sandwich was lukewarm at best, soggy, and generally unappetizing. I was extremely disappointed having had better experiences in other Panera locations. Value is never great at Panera, but to pay $ 7.50 for a soggy cold mess that was literally in pieces when I got it is not excusable.
Though this is a new location, I would expect a few issues as staff are trained, however there are some fundamental problems here. I would recommend steering clear for at least a few months while this location gets its bearings.