I had a bad experience (my first!) at Panera Bread last night. They just started offering cold soba noodles with chilled shrimp as a summer special. So of course, that's what I wanted to try as our knitting group goes to Panera every other Wednesday night so new items are welcomed!
I placed my order and noticed that there were at least a dozen people waiting for their food even though I was the only one ordering. After about 20 minutes of waiting, I went up to the counter and asked about my salad. The expediter didn't say much except that the noodles had to be prepped and now he is waiting for shrimp. I told him that was not really acceptable and he didn't say anything but kept working on his other orders.
At this point, I was getting frustrated as I had never had to wait that long for an item at Panera before, even at their busiest on a Saturday morning. I did find the manager who was apologetic as she was in the back (prepping shrimp!) and wasn't aware that there were such long waits (I checked the expediter monitor and there were others waiting as long as I was for differing items). She also mentioned that they were so busy this past week that they were running out of everything. Being that I work in the restaurant industry, I could see her point, but it still didn't explain the long wait for an item that was clearly advertised as a new product and should have been overstocked, if anything.
She did offer another item as a replacement, but I told her that since I was already there, and planning on staying for a while, it wasn't necessary but that I just wanted to bring it to her attention as it was such an anomaly.
I can't say that I won't ever go to Panera again because it's where our knitting group typically meets, but there are several other restaurants in the vicinity that I might suggest until Panera gets over their supply issues.
