Stop Eating at Panera's Ramsey Location

for Ramapo News

There has never been a time where I walked out of the Panera Bread in Ramsey Square fully satisfied. 

While Panera is a franchise for bread connoisseurs and soup lovers, the location in Ramsey attracts college kids and aggravated moms frantically trying to control their energetic kids from running around the store. 

The same five songs repeat on the basic cafe music playlist, and the seating is spacious and very limited. 

These barely reach the list of problems with the location. The main issue? I have never received the correct order when I am given my food; there’s always something missing. 

I am not the only one who has been treated this way as this is a common occurrence in which multiple people have experience: my friends, family, and even professors have talked about how Panera Break is unreliable. 

Students from the school’s newspaper refuse to order dinner from the establishment due to this infamous reason. 

Perhaps the most annoying aspect of the franchise itself is the removal of staple items from their menu to add mediocre, seasonal options. 

For example, the french onion soup will be gone until January, and its replacement is an “autumn squash soup.” Why can’t this seasonal option just be an addition to the menu? 

Panera is not a fancy establishment. No one thinks this, but the corporation tries too hard to fool the public with their high prices and catchy gourmet-sounding food options: “napa almond chicken salad sandwich,” “Southwest chili lime ranch salad” and “Mediterranean grain bowl” to name a few. 

When the food finally arrives and is given a taste, the quality ranges from moderate to good. While the food is always hot, there’s nothing really exciting about the flavors presented at Panera Bread. 

It is your average comfort food, and many people do enjoy that aspect of their cuisine, but is a standard grilled cheese with just white bread and American cheese worth the $7.39 that it’s listed for?

It’s hard to describe the flavors when everything is so average. The tomato soup is tomato soup, and the macaroni and cheese is just that. The only experience one truly remembers when eating at Panera is the dent it causes in their wallet.

While the franchise itself has many flaws, the location is lazy, not considerate, and not comfortable to enjoy a meal.