Panera Bread - nasty or decent?

[Anonymous]

I also hate the smell of Subway!

[Anonymous]

I like it. The menu changes often enough. The food is good.

[Anonymous]

Great tomato soup!

[Anonymous]

When I used to travel for work constantly it was often the best fast casual choice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I also hate the smell of Subway!

John Oliver recently commented on the smell of Subway - it's the smell that says "What if bread could fart?"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I also hate the smell of Subway!

The lobby of my old office had a subway in it. I couldn't eat Subway for years after smelling the bread each time I entered or exited the building. Also, the smell would sometimes waft up and fill the office.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In before all the "Panera is hospital food" posters.

I like the breakfast egg souffles.

Yes, those are really delicious.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I like Panera but feel like it’s getting really pricey for basically a soup and sandwich.

This is my issue with it. It's fine, not great but passable, but $14 later, I still feel hungry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I miss some of their old items, like the black bean soup. But in general its usually good when I'm on the road.

Yes it was the best vegetarian soup.

[Anonymous]

When my kid went to Princeton, Panera was just about the only place on Nassau Street to grab a tea or coffee. I enjoyed some of the soups and salads. It's not that bad! I do not live close to any in DC so I do not go. But, if I did, I would get their monthly drink deal that I keep getting emails for.

[Anonymous]

I don’t eat at Subway and now want to walk into one just to see what smell you’re talking about.

[Anonymous]

I used to like Panera but I just don’t anymore. Their veggies in salads are low quality and the breads aren’t as good anymore. I used to love the Bacon Turkey Bravo sandwich in that tomato basil brown sugar bread. It is blah now.

They often have refrigerated tomatoes. Blech.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Panera and Chick-fil-a have both been phenomenal at convincing the public that their food is better than McDonald's/Burger King/Taco Bell.

Their advertising is really *chef's kiss*

I find most of Panera's food tasty but try not to eat it too often because it's loaded with sodium. Even some of their salads are deceptive. A whole Green Goddess salad has over 1000 sodium! (940 for salad & 160 for dressing). Adults should only have 2300 mg of sodium per day.

I’m on Weight Watchers and I can get the grilled nuggets at Chik Fil A for one point. They fill me up, are a reasonable option and are not available at BK or McD. Also, their grilled chicken sandwich is about 5 points.

Definitely a better option than other fast food places!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t eat at Subway and now want to walk into one just to see what smell you’re talking about.

I hadn't commented above, but it's a very earthy yeast smell. I worked at one like 30 years ago and they ship the breads raw, but frozen to the stores. Each morning, you took out the frozen breads and put them on the trays and put the trays into the bread ovens and there was a switch that would thaw/rise the dough, then switch to cook it. There is something about the freezing process and the yeast that they use that gives a very odd more earthy smell to their bread than regular yeast. But once they cook that, it takes hours for the smell from the breads to fade and doing it daily means that the Subways smell like that for half of every day. More if someone puts a second batch of breads in the oven (like on busy days).

[Anonymous]

Gross