Panera Bread

So I am a resident of Blount county. My family and I love Panera bread and eat here at least once a week. We eat here every Sunday for breakfast and the past few months they have just gone really downhill. The staff is nice, the restaurant is clean but everytime we go the food is burnt or very close to being burnt and it's disappointing as it does not taste the same anymore. It's everytime we go so we will no longer be customers of this location.

Had a bit of a weird experience today when I went to pick up a "to go" order that my girlfriend made online. Got there and they had no record of the order. Not sure what the problem was but it wasn't related to the staff working there... They were great. It must have been an issue with how the online system is forwarding orders to the local store. If anyone from corporate reads this you need to check into that! It was a 4 miles bike ride for me and then I had to re order and wait. If that's going to keep happening to folks you are going to lose a LOT of business due to a technical issue with the online order interface. Other than that, everything was fine. Clean store, basic Panera atmosphere and layout.

My husband, myself, and sister n law ordered a bowl of soup and drinks each. My spoon was dirty with hard food on the back. I went to the front counter and the young lady was busy, so I flagged down a worker behind the food counter, showed him the spoon, and asked for another, he said just a minute. It was about 5 minutes and I ask the young lady again but the man came back with a plastic spoon and walked away. The soup was smoking hot. I asked the young lady to page the manager. Well the manger turned out to be the same man who was going to get me another metal spoon but gave me the plastic one. I told him, I'm not going to take the spoon home, and the soup is too hot for a plastic one. He said that's why I gave you a plastic one did you think it would melt, and walked away. We spent $35.00 today at about 130pm. The service of the manager was rude and unprofessional.

My son loves this place. Especially the bread. Always orders soup in a bread bowl and the tomato bread I think it is. I however quite often have a tough time ordering because all ingredients and sauces are not listed. One thing I liked was the steak sandwich, maybe a tad too much horseradish but that's a preference thing. I did not like the grilled Mac and cheese Just toast with Mac and cheese laddled over. The flavor very reminiscent of Velveeta. Could not eat it.

Visited this location in Alcoa. Haven't patronized Panera in a while seeing as the one local to me has not had an open dining room in a while. This location was clean. The food was ok. My souffle was not great. I had also ordered a yogurt bowl, and it was good. This location falls within the standards of most other Paneras.

Ice coffee was as light as ice tea. Icing on orange scone was a thin see thru layer. Told the manager to get bakers to add a decent layer of icing like before or tell cooperate to quit skimming off the top. Tried panera again after leaving for awhile thru the pandemic. Might have to enjoy First Watch now. Better value for the money and they listen.