There are so many things to comment on it's hard to know where to start. Panara, over the last 5-10 years continues to go downhill, not just in this location, but the entire chain. Skimpy ingredients, making the bread thicker to cover up for a lack of ingredients, cutting back on bakery items, and/or removing the bakery display in some stores. Changing the format to be more like a fast food chain, with very bright stores, loud dining rooms, and an environment that discourages one of the biggest reasons people come to Panera; it was a nice comfortable place to relax, hang out, read a book, and maybe do some homework. This new location is bright, clean, and shiny. On the surface, it seems like a great refresh but stay a little while and notice all they have taken away to make it a less-than-desirable place to be. It's basically a Panda or mall food court fast food shop now. The new location is much smaller than the last one on 32nd. It's cramped, very loud, and overly bright. Not conducive to relaxed conversation, doing homework, or hanging out with friends. I'm guessing it's a design decision. Make it less comfortable, sterile, and harsh to turnover faster and try to capitalize on a faster churn of customers. The new tech to get your order is overly complicated and slows things down. Sometimes the simple way is best. They now give you a device that is supposed to light up to help signal the wait staff where to take the food. Simply put, it's a failure. The staff tries to hide it though. On one side under a lip, is a tiny LED screen with an order number. The staff try and read it casually and try to not be noticed but that is how they are getting the order to the table instead of the large plastic or paper table numbers they used to use that the staff could read from across the whole dining room. The surfaces are all bright and hard; hard chairs, floors, walls, etc. That is to further encourage you to eat quickly and go away. Not the format Panera was built on. Instead, you end up with a less comfortable seat and a lot of very loud ambient noise. Everything is designed to move you along and alienate the core customers who have kept Panera going for years. The tables are smaller, and much closer together, again encouraging people to eat and move along and don't bring too many friends with them. The bakery section in most Panera's in the past had a large display area with breads, bagels, and other baked items. Well presented and ready to be sold. This location has a much smaller display case with very little in it. Behind the counter the baskets of bread and bagels are gone, replaces with proofing racks normally kept in the kitchen. They are ugly and another example is that they want you out fast and no longer want to be a place people come frequently or hang out. Also more typical of Panera, half the menu is out of stock. We have been coming to the Joplin location for seven years, and despite the shortcomings, there is not a lot of competition if you want a good sandwich or soup. And every single time we come, we order and they say they are out of this or that. Every single time. Clearly poor inventory management. And they can't blame COVID, it's been this way for years. So we come to the new location and try and order, Tried to order a sandwich on the new ones they have giant backlit posters all over the store advertising, nope, they don't have the ingredients to make any of them. I try a normal regular sandwich they always carry, and nope, only have half of what it takes to make it. How about soup, I wanted the French Onion soup, sure thing but no cheese, and so it went. I settled on the Turkey Bacon on Tomato bread, it comes out with bread measurably cut over an inch and a quarter thick per slice, It's a heavy bread and I guess that was supposed to make up for the paper-thin tomato and nearly nothing else in-between. Still, it was so thick I could barely take a bite of it. We ordered one whole sandwich, and two cups of soup, my wife had the Teriyaki bowl and we each had a regular drink. That was $45 bucks before the tip. At least they now have a drive-thru. Come on Panera, do better get back to your roots. read more