I don't like leaving negative reviews but here we go. Today 12/23/21 at 1:23pm, my daughter and I decided to stop here for lunch because she likes the mac & cheese. We ordered through the kiosk and patiently waited. Here's our order: Kids mac & cheese, yogurt, strawberry smoothie, candy cookie and a 1/2 soup and sandwich with chips on the side. This shouldn't take long right? I started getting worried that it would be a while when I saw a lot of people irritatingly waiting and checking their receipts. I had a feeling we walked in at a bad time.
At 1:55pm, our food was ready. 32 minutes! I understand service can take a while, especially during these times, but come on! It's not like this food is made from scratch. We all know it's pre-packaged and isn't fresh (if you don't know this, don't let the fancy name and ambiance fool you). The wait irritated me but didn't make me mad. Here's what ticked me off: when I went to go retrieve my order, my daughter's cookie was missing. I tell the young lady that the cookie is missing from our order and her reply is "you have to go get it from the front counter". I told her that I ordered from the kiosk, not the front and her reply is "well, we don't have the cookie back here" so I ask her "can you get it for me?" and her response is "you have to get it from the front". Really?!?!
Seriously, you have customers who have been waiting well over too long for their food and when an item is missing, you make them go get it? Was it really that hard for her to ask a co-worker to get it or for her to walk over the same distance as me to get it? Upset, I hella cut in front of people ordering to get my daughter's cookie because there's no way I was getting in a line to wait, not when I already ordered and an item was missing.
Have some sympathy for the customer and fulfill their order! COME ON! Also, I watched them prep each order and my daughter's smoothie was made rather quickly and sat for over 25mins in the pick up window. When our order was ready, I couldn't believe that they let it sit up on the counter that long. I should have asked them to remake it but yeah, I didn't wanna chance the wait again. The service and execution at this location straight up SUCKS! Deuces Panera Vallejo! If you keep this up, you'll end up like your neighbor, Rubio's, who shut down a few weeks ago.
I know I should be more patient when it comes to restaurant workers during these times and what not but simple service and empathy is not hard. Places like Chick-fil-A would have responded with "I'm sorry sir, let me get that for you?" not, "you have to go get that yourself". If you're in customer service, your job is to SERVE the customer.
Ok, I'm done. And if a manager is seeing this, no, I don't need a complimentary free meal to make it right. Please, train your employees to SERVE. Even if you're running behind, communicate, apologize, and do everything you can to make the experience as best as possible. I would've probably not have left this negative review if the employee simply said "Sorry for the wait" and "let me get that for you?". Instead, I got nothing and moving forward, this location will get nothing from me. I'm out. read more