Panera Bread

This is regarding my recent experience at the Panera at Factoria Mall, Bellevue, WA. I enrolled in Unlimited Sip Club during Covid, it is a perfect place for me to grab a cup of coffee in the morning. It became my daily routine now, but most of the time, I order coffee only. At first, I mobile order the coffee then wait curbside. But Panera changes policy, you at least need $5 purchase for curbside pickup. It makes no sense to ask the crew bring a coffee out of store for a free order. I understand it. Since making a coffee is super simple and I'm not ordering anything else, this Cafe requires customer self-serving coffee if nothing else ordered. It's just a coffee, customer can do it by themselves without wasting the crew's time. I understand it. But recently, the manager asks them taking all the large coffee cups out of reach, so I have to wait in queue, ask for a large coffee cup even though I already mobile ordered. This is extremely inconvenient and waste everyone's time I mean, if you don't want the customer taking the large cups by themselves, then don't ask them self-serving !!! Make a coffee for them OR if you want customer to self-serve, make the large cups available to them. I mobile ordered because I want to save some time. Don't make this harder for anyone without any gaining. Don't take off your pants and fart, it is totally unnecessary. Old Chinese saying. But I want to say this review may change when they make a change based on this feedback because all the crews in this store are super good and friendly.

Updated. 2 Month later still the same. Frontega chicken sandwich should be good by now but not. At this location my Grilled Frontega chicken sandwich was dry and not grilled. They didn’t put enough of sauce in it and didn’t grill the bread. I usually order grilled frontera chicken sandwich at Panera. And based on Different Panera bread restaurant this sandwich might be a bit different. But I like when it’s juicy and bread is lightly grilled.

Years ago --- I had a grilled cheese at a Panera pre-pandemic that was amazing and had multiple cheeses and super toasty on proper bakery bread... This BS is on classic white bread, 100% fake American cheese with zero flavor and hardly toasted at all. Idk of this is specific to factoria or Panera but I'd never come here again. Prices were OK and they are fast hence they 1 star above miserable.

Really disappointing. The service used to be so much better. When we arrived, all the tables were dirty and we had to clean it ourselves. It took 20+ min to get our food and when we did, the roast beef minus the arugula was seriously lacking. (see photo). I think it will be a long time until we visit again.