Panera Bread

Tonight I went to Panera Bread for the first time. The restaurant was set up great, with good seating and a decent sized area to order in (some places I feel closterphobic because the ordering area is tiny).

I ordered the turkey sandwich, it came on some kind of country bread. I felt kind of dumb when the girl asked if I wanted everything on it and I had to ask what came with it. So for those who don't know, apparently lettuce, onion, mustard, mayo, tomato all come standard on the sandwiches there. I went w/o onion and mustard, but do what you will.

Overall, it's basically an expensive sandwich. The bread was good, but the rest was basically what I would do at home. The chips that they give you with it are more or less kettle cooked chips, but they were yummy.

I also ordered a chocolate walnut cookie (cannot remember the full name of it). It was really good. It wasn't too hard, but also not so soft that you couldn't pick it up and eat it.

I think my meal (with a drink) was around $7-$8. Is it a place I would go often? no. But the meal was satisfactory. I would go again and enjoy it, but I would also think that I could make about a dozen sandwiches at home for the same price.

On a scale of 1-5, I give Panera a 3.5. The half point is due to the guts they have to charge what they do for a sandwich. The rest is because I enjoyed it overall.