For some reason, Seven Days, doesn't publish reviews for Panera Bread. I guess for the same reason they don't review McDonald's or Burger King. And while Panera is a chain like those others, I think the food is much better than your usual fast or casual food stop. So anyway here is my review.
On this particular Saturday we were bored and decided to go to a wine tasting at our favorite wine store in the whole wide world, Dedalus, on the waterfront. Since we were going to be partaking of some rather yummy Austrian wines, we decided to go to Church Street for some lunch first. My first choice was the new taco place, but as we were walking through the mall we noticed Panera Bread. Having eaten at a couple of these in the past, we decided to try this instead.
Panera is set up like most fast food joints, you order your food at a counter, picking from the menus posted overhead and then they bring your food to your table by locating you on a pager style beeper, (which wasn't working on this particular day, so the servers were having to shout while walking through the very large space). The problem with this is in the Burlington location, there is ALOT of traffic going through the same space as the line snakes through, and the lines can be HUGE. So this creates bottlenecks and confusion, in addition for people not familiar with the menu, (us for instance), you are walking past the bakery, looking up trying to read the menu, trying to find the correct line and trying not to bump into everyone coming and going . PHEW, alot of work involved in just getting your food.
As you are looking for the correct line to lineup in, pay attention to the bakery you are walking by, it will come back to you in a bit. Fortunately, the place was packed so we had a bit of a wait in line. this gave us time to study the menu.When it was our turn to order, I went with the chipotle chicken panini and wifey went with the salmon Mediterranean salad. Now for my mistake, I was offered any item from the bakery for $.99 but since I had not paid attention to the bakery, I passed. My wife on the other hand spotted a strawberries and cream scone and got one of those . DUH, what a dunce I was, as the normal pricing for bakery items appears to be $2.99 AND on top of that the scone was DELICIOUS.
Once you place your order, you now have the joy of finding a place to sit. It appears that Panera is a BIG hit with the downtown Burlington crowd. Of course, by offering free wi-fi you are guaranteed to have the laptop squatters taking up valuable table space for hours and hours at a time. I think after 45 minutes, Panera should be able to bring over a mini parking meter and if you don't constantly feed it quarters, out you go. ANYWAYS, we were lucky as we walked around the serving counter, boom a table magically opened up for us. As the wife sat down, I went off to look for the soda fountain, tucked wayyyy in the back, to get her soda. For some strange reason ,the lemonade is served behind the counter? Is lemonade really that much more expensive that you don't want to put it with the soda and coffee pots? So after delivering the soda, back up to the counter to get my now ready lemonade, weird way to do things.
So how did all this taste once we finally got settled in and our food came to us? First, lets start with the scone. We ate this while we were waiting and it was delicious. Not at all dry and crumbly like a typical scone but rather soft and cake like with great flavors. In a REALLY quick manner our meals arrived;
The food was very good, my chicken sandwich was packed with meat and had the perfect amount of heat from the chipotle and smokiness from the bacon. As you can see wife's salad was HUGE, although I am not a big fan of cold salmon and to me it tasted a bit fishy. But the wife loved it and ate every drop. For $23.70, this place is a very good value for downtown Burlington. We left full and happy. And before I get nasty comments, I KNOW it's not local and I KNOW they truck in their food from all over the country and I KNOW they don't make everything fresh in house. But still, if you have to visit a fast/casual food place you could do ALOT worse.
On a scale of 1 to 5;
Food, Quality means much more to us than quantity.
Beer and Wine, Based on selection and pricing
Service, Speaks for itself
Ambiance, Does the look fit the food and pricing
Price, And finally does the pricing equal the results we had.
Food, 3.5 Very good food. With a very good variety, providing you want sandwiches or salads.
Beer and Wine, NO No beer and wine so no rating.
Service, 2.5 Counter service only and it will be assumed you have been here before.
Ambiance, 3.0 Nice space but CROWDED. Be prepared to fight for a table.
Price, 4.0 Very reasonable for downtown Burlington.
Overall, 3.25 I am not a very big fan of the whole fast/casual food chains, but I must say this is
one of the better ones out there. If your in a hurry or just want something quick, you could do MUCH worse than this one.
