I could have bought a bigger can of soup from the grocery store for $4 and made a grilled cheese for like $6. Absolute rip off.
I worked at a Panera briefly. I remember asking for $10hr and being told that was too much and only managers can make that.
I remember having to close the store at 11pm and be back at 4am for the opening shift so I just slept in my car in the parking lot instead of driving home as I lived 30 mins away.
I remember being threatened with being fired if I took any of the food that gets thrown out at closing. They told us they donated it to local homeless shelters but they always made us throw them in big garbage bags and take them out to the dumpster.
I remember even with an employee discount, I still couldn't afford to eat lunch there so I would order an online order for myself under a fake name, use the option of "pay at store", and just grab the food off the pick up shelf when I went on my break (since the pick up area was hidden behind our counter and the managers never watched the cameras)
I remember when our manager pulled us aside and showed us another employee's Facebook photos before he transitioned and dead named him and said "he looked better as a girl."
The only upside was hiding in the walk in and throwing tomatoes at the air vents until the blades malfunctioned.
Panera is also to blame for the absolutely fucked way that people in St. Louis cut bagels.
I lived by Saint Louis Bread Company for a few years. Seems I made the right choice to never go there. Abomination.
Panera strikes me as the kind of place to get good "feel good" press a decade ago and then just turn to dogshit after the vultures demanded line go up
I cannot for the life of me persuade my spouse that we should not go there. The prices are absurd but they like the soup and special coffee too much.
To be fair they occupy a pretty small niche as far as soup goes. Any other Cafe you would get soup in is probably gonna gouge you just as badly.
There needs to be a kind of restaurant that just has soups and stews and nice crusty bread to dunk in them.
I could have bought a bigger can of soup from the grocery store for $4 and made a grilled cheese for like $6. Absolute rip off.
I don't know where you buy your soup, bread, and cheese, but I suspect you're getting ripped off. This meal is like $1.50 at most.
