Panera Bread

BEWARE!! BEWARE!! 😖Let me start by saying I have been to this particular Panera on several occasions and never had any issues. This was true when I went into the store yesterday to purchase the bakers dozen bagels that are half price on Tuesday. They were packaged in 1 of their Panera cardboard boxes as always. I drove straight home with them to enjoy my breakfast. Here's where things changed. I get home from work a few hours later and go to grab a bagel and there was an ANT on my bagel! So I go tearing through my kitchen and no ants in sight. I disregard and head to bed. I go to get a bagel this morning- more ants! I took all the bagels out and found ants in the bottom of the box in between the folds! Again not an ant in site anywhere in my kitchen and ants always leave a trail. I proceed to call Panera and speak with an associate to make them aware of the issue. I was immediately met with confrontation and told that this employee opened the store yesterday and didn't see any ants. She said that in her 6 years she's never heard of this happening and that ants easily get into a house or car to find food. Never once an apology, just attitude! I said I just wanted to warn them just in case they did come from the store. She then covers the phone with her hand (I assume since I could hear her) and says to the manager that this lady is on the phone saying she had ants in her bagels so you can talk to her. The manager gets on the phone and I repeat my story. Again I'm told she hasn't seen any ants and they've never seen them at the store so it couldn't be from there. I repeat that I'm just making them aware just in case so they can double check and be sure it's not an issue since they serve food. She then says I'm sorry (finally) and says well do you want a free replacement or something. I said no but you should be aware that the most likely case is that they came from Panera. I also proceeded to let her know I didn't appreciate the original employee's tone and placing blame instead of mitigating the situation. She said she would talk to her and have pest control come spray an extra time. IN SHORT, IF YOU WANT PANERA GO ELSEWHERE! Contacting the health department later today for a follow up since Panera didn't seem concerned about possible food contamination.

I really like Panera, but this particular location is always on the struggle bus. If I order take out, I'm missing utensils or part of my order about 50% of the time. If I dine in, the dining area is always a wreck (hard to find clean tables and the floor is always littered). If you ever go later in the day, this location is usually out of some kind of ingredient. Not well stocked. Occasionally I've gotten food that was supposed to be hot and wasn't or portions differed/were smaller than what I usually get. I feel for some of the front line workers who bear the brunt of interfacing with irritated or impatient customers, because responsible levels of management haven't taken the time to support this location.

I give two stars because I truly love Panera but Jodi who is staff there was VERY RUDE!! She tried to over charge me for two bowls of soup she threw my receipt and was clacking her red finger nails at me. This is totally unacceptable when you do nothing to deserve such disgusting service. STAY AWAY FROM JODI