Panera Bread - West Saint Paul

I stick to a keto diet so hadn't considered Panera as an option but just wanted a quick bite in the area while I did a bit of work. A new friend suggested the salads here and said the coffee was great so I gave them a try. She was right. The green goddess salad was quite good and very filling even without a side. The dark coffee was quite tasty and my spot by the fireplace was comfortable and had a plug-in handy for my computer. It was a great choice!

We picked up breakfast wraps and coffee, it's a relatively inexpensive and healthy breakfast prepared quickly. Our favorite breakfast wrap is the chipotle chicken avocado one but none of them are bad :

I came to my lunch break. I ordered the pick two 1/2 sandwich and 1/2 salad. My sandwich was the Speck Turkey band. It was good. My only complaint is how sweet the bread is, but I would order it again. My salad was the chicken. It was delicious. I would order that again. I needed a perk to order a little Madagascar vanilla ice cream coffee. It was wonderful. My experience here was good. The guy who took my order was nice and helpful. I will return to this place.

We love Panera, but the reason why this particular situation and our experience today is only earned a 4 star because they were out of a few things and their bakery were almost empty... My BBQ Chicken Sandwich came perfect to say so much about it, and my sons pizza was also great. However, my wife's favorite part is the tomatoes Basil bread for her sandwich that they were made of... her Turkey sandwich didn't taste the same and she actually didn't eat half of it. It really depends on what you usually get, but you could be very disappointed if they are from your favorites. But it was great for me personally!

This is by far my favorite Panera Bread. They do a wonderful job of anticipating me, making me feel like a valued regular (even though 90% of the time I’m just grabbing free coffee from my subscription and not spending much) and are always quick and efficient. In fact, my wife will occasionally order coffee for me to pick up, and even when she forgets to, often times the workers here will make sure I have an extra coffee cup. Even if she hasn’t officially ordered and they just notice me grabbing another cup right before I leave, plenty of times they’ll have that cup waiting for me. Also, this Panera in particular does a wonderful job of coming off as politically neutral. Many big companies (Panera included) try to be “woke” and promote LGBT merchandise or any number of other “woke” topics. Whatever you think about those things personally, the fact that this Panera doesn’t try and yell “we’re woke, we need to make a political statement” makes this a place where people of all backgrounds can come in, feel comfortable, and not have to worry about their favorite chain shoving a political statement down their throat. Between the awesome employees and the way this place is managed, this store needs to be an example to ALL Panera Bread restaurants. This is how you maintain a business, a customer connection, and a good work ethic.