Fine Dining - Panera Bread Is a Pastry Paradise

Episode Date: April 9, 2025

We finally ate at Panera Bread — and while the bakery items impressed, the rest of the experience was a chaotic medley of kiosk confusion, bathroom code injustice, and raw onion overload. I’m joined once again by Lyss Johnson (comedian, friend, and former Panera employee) as we break down every detail of our in-person visit to the iconic soup-slinging, salad-stacking chain. Can the cinnamon crunch bagel save this spot from mediocrity? Or is Panera coasting on vibes and vending machine tech? 🥯 The Cinnamon Crunch Bagel That Nearly Ruined Our Lives (In a Good Way) 🍲 Fireside Chili in a Bread Bowl That Got Weirdly Placental 📟 Ordering Kiosk Nightmares and the Case of the Disappearing French Dip 🚽 Bathroom Codes Are Inhumane – Let the People Pee 🍪 The Cookie That Made Us Chipper (and Maybe Changed Our Lives) 🎨 Lettuce Art, Cucky Murals, and Farmer-Flattering Decor 🎶 Off-Brand Pop Anthems That Broke Our Brains 🐔 Lyss Johnson's Score, a Chicken Bag Horror Story, and the Panera Perverts 💬 JOIN THE DISCUSSION: What’s your Panera go-to? Is the soup worth the struggle? 📢 SUPPORT THE SHOW & JOIN THE COMMUNITY: 🔥 Patreon (Bonus reviews & exclusive content!): https://www.patreon.com/c/finediningpodcast 💬 Discord (Chat chains & share horror stories!): https://discord.gg/6a2YqrtWV4 🎥 Watch full episodes on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@finediningpodcast 🔗 All links: www.linktree.com/finediningpodcast ⚡ Like, Subscribe & Share if you believe every restaurant deserves a fair trial! Patreon Producers: Sue Ornelas & Joyce Van 👉 NEXT WEEK: We set sail for Joe’s Crab Shack — nautical nonsense or seafood salvation? 🦀

Panera Bread, a bakery that, if nothing else, has mastered sweet treats, but the most contrived ordering process I've ever experienced. A chocolate chip cookie that made me feel chipper, but erroneous ingredients in my salad that were not supposed to be there. Fun wacky murals on the side of the building, but I couldn't help but feel mistakes were made when the view across the street is one of the most delicious and popular bakeries in all of Southern California. We left our homes for this,

so today we'll cover everything good about eating at a Panera Bread before discussing the not good to see if those two things are in perfect harmony in an effort to locate the midpoint of all chain restaurants. Is it Panera Bread? Let's find out together.

This is the Fine Dining Podcast, the search for the most mediocre restaurant in America. I'm your host, Michael Ornelas, and this is the show where I'm looking for the precisely in the middle dining experience, the perfect five point double zero out of 10, because only once you know what's directly in the center, can you tell what's good or not good by comparison. Currently, the absolute pinnacle of the middle is Cracker Barrel, which is sitting pretty on my scoreboard, the Chachki of Mediocrity, at a 5.01 out of 10.

Will Panera Bread dethrone it and become the objective point of comparison for all of us to determine good or bad by, or will this just be part of the journey and route to that destination? Joining me today to discuss Panera Bread, a three-time employee of the year of the brand I'm making that up, but I'm going to assume it's true, a friend and comedian who has been employed by six different chain restaurants I've covered on this show, it's Liss Johnson. Yay! Liss, welcome back. Thanks for having me. Of course.

Yeah, we went to Panera. How are you feeling? It was a great experience. I knew it was going to be when I pulled up and the sign on the wall, the size of the door said, have a macaroon moment. Have a macaroon moment. I was like, it's so fun. I do want to say you came prepped for this.

You have baguette earrings. Oh, yeah, one broke. But I did have baguette earrings. I have some sort of croissant necklace. Yep. I wanted to make it more subtle. And it's like a powdered sugar on it, too. Yeah, exactly.

So it's almost like when you get an almond croissant, just sans the almond. All about details. I tried to dress like I'm a Panera manager. You got the Panera green going. I try to dress like I'm a Panera manager. You got the Panera green going. I wanted to fit the theme. So you came prepared. We have to talk about all of the elements of Panera before putting it into a score. Are you ready to jump into it?

I'm ready. All right. We're going to talk about all the things about this Panera lunch that we had that were good. I just have to say they tried. They tried. They really tried with the decor in so many ways that I can't bash the effort because I think I'm jaded by so many places not making an effort that look, even a swing and a miss is still a swing.

The color palette is like warm, it makes sense. It's like, oh, this is like, this is loving. This is, you know, energizing. Get your work done here. Versus like when you go into some Chipotle's and they have the wall of just like random holes. You know what I'm talking about? Like this, it feels thoughtful. Like you said, it feels intentional. The wall of random holes.

Yeah. Yeah. What is that? I don't know. It sounds like something at a sex club. It's dumb about it. Yeah. Yeah. What is that? I don't know. It sounds like something at a sex club. It's something about it, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I loved... So I parked on the side of the building that happened to have this, and I would have never known it was there otherwise, but on the exterior of this Panera,

there are three pretty grand murals that are, I want to say, the values of the company, which is bread, right? Yeah, there's a woman baking bread and there's like a big bread oven. Then there's another guy with a table full of breads, but they're all just like, it's almost like Greek paintings. Yeah, they were like Renaissance style murals depicting these like dreamy imagery

of a romanticizing a bakery if it was like in a field under heaven. Right. They're forgetting they just sold death lemony. It's like two seconds ago. Where did that go? Where's the death lemony barrel? Yeah.

Felt random. Well, we'll put the lack of death lemonade in the not good later. Yeah, yeah. We'll get to it. Oh, but this was good. Yeah, we were impressed. We were positive here. We were impressed. We were positive here.

We were impressed. And you don't have to agree with me. Like if you didn't like these murals, but I'm gonna send their prices. I did, I did. They were gorgeous. But yes, and then they have, so they have the guy selling bread

and he's like blowing like a bullhorn. I guess that's like, come get your bread. Broom. Like I don't know what the goal is with that. And then there was like a shepherd with some sheep, I think. It was a table out in the middle of a field. Like a round table with a bunch of people gathered,

eating, at first glance what I thought was all bread. When I came and got you and then took you back to it, I did notice it was like plates of like mush. Some sort of mush, yeah. It looked like a rice with like a bean gravy or something. And then a bunch of bread on the table. And then there's like a couple off to the side that I don't know if they're watching

because they're perverts. Or if they just are invited and on their way. There wasn't enough motion in their gate for me to think they were on their way to the table. They were kind of like hiding behind a tree, I felt like too. I felt pervy. There wasn't enough motion in their gait for me to think they were on their way to the table phone. They were kind of like hiding behind a tree, I felt like, too. I felt pervy. It felt cucky in a way, somehow.

I don't know if I'm allowed to say that. I'm sorry. You did. And then just to, this is the one thing about them I'll knock. They tried a little too much with the off to the side of that. They have on the mural, someone climbing and actively painting the mural as part of the mural. And it's just like, you're trying too hard.

They broke the fourth wall. Like, you don't need to do that. They saw it somewhere and they were like, Oh, let's put that on our Panera. Yeah, it's it's fine. I don't know whatever. But I did. I did like the murals overall, just that one move. I'm like, all right, that's it's fine. I don't know whatever but but I did I did like the murals overall just that one move I'm like, all right, that's that's yeah. Yeah, they tried. Yeah. Yeah, and then inside I Mean, I don't know what did you think of of the decor?

What did you think was good about the decor you brought up? You said look there's a framed picture of lettuce And I turned and it just was a giant photo of just a ball of lettuce, head of lettuce. And I'm like, well, at least you know what you're getting into. They're like, we have lettuce here. Yeah. Well, it's interesting because there was one

that was of a strawberry, there was a farmer picking gourds, like little pumpkins or something, or butternut squash or something. They had actual tractors through fields. They had a, you know, weathered hands over a bucket of grapes. Yeah. And thinking back to the eat eats last week and the antibiotic controversy that was like that riled up the agricultural community. I think this is them trying to overcorrect of like, see, we celebrate you.

They're trying to patch stuff up with the farmers clearly. They're like, look, like it's framed. What more do you want? Yeah, definitely. There was like a row of cutting boards. Yeah, they were like quirky cutting boards, kind of like patterns. All had different patterns on them.

That was like art installation vibes. I appreciated that. And so they tried. Yeah. I appreciated that. And so they tried. They tried. They tried. All with a great color scheme, tying it all together. It's like pastel, the green, you know?

Yeah, but I mean, that's like a, that's a corporate green. That's a workplace green. Yeah, this could be Olive Garden. This could be many different greens, yeah. Okay, what else is good? That's a bad start when it's like, we've said one thing we liked and we're like, all right, what else is good?

We mentioned everything but the food, like immediately. I do actually have several food items in the good. And I will go on record saying, I didn't have high hopes for it, so maybe it's a case of my expectations were so low And I will go on record saying I didn't have high hopes for it So maybe it's a case of my expectations were so low that by just exceeding them. I was way impressed. Yeah But in the good I've got the cherry pastry Which you know like a Danish with?

Very sweet cherries on top a little over sugared, but I will say the bread tasted fresh. Hmm Is that a hmm of disagreement? I have it not sorted exactly similar. The memory is a little different in my mind. All right. But I will say the red looked very dark. Yeah. In a way to where like if I saw that color in blood, I'd feel like that person is unhealthy.

I'm used to the vibrant red, but then I realized that the vibrant red is probably red food dye. So I feel like this was probably a little bit more natural, despite the fact that you made the comment during the meal that you think that they used a lot of red dye in this. Yeah, I was like, these just, the cherries looked like balls of red 40.

I'm like, I don't know that I even want to ingest this Yeah, I don't know at the end of the day even though it looked like old blood I thought it tasted good I gave it a 7 out of 10 That's beautiful so if you're gonna bring it up later and it's in a different category we'll move on No, I did have notes on the on the cherry. It just felt on the cherry pastry. I think it was like, okay, I can do the red 40 cherry balls and cherry, I guess in quotes. And then my issue was the pastry was like so chalky,

it felt like to me, like I felt like, like afterward, like it coated my teeth or something. I think I gave it like a four out of 10. Wow. It's a little lower than yours. I should have gave you my chunk because I don't think I finished it. All right, fine.

Portion control, I don't need more than I ate. I already ate a lot of food. Okay, onto the next sweet, maybe you'll think differently. Actually, you didn't try this one, the Cinnamon Crunch Bagel. Oh, I did, no I did. You did try it, okay. I thought this was really good.

It was too good, it was too good. That's why I didn't eat a lot. Yeah, I did. Okay. I thought this was really good. It was too good. It was too good That's why I didn't eat a lot. Yeah I saw it mentioned a lot on Yelp when I was going through Yelp reviews This is the most recurring hit item that I saw. Yeah, I think Yelp is right. I got I went eight out of ten on the Cinnamon crunch bagel. I also love cinnamon toast crunch, which just Evoking that with the name makes me think of my favorite cereal. Yeah. So if you can deliver something that's even remotely close to that taste

experience, I'm probably going to like it. So eight out of 10 on that. What would you give it? It was good. I did take a little nibble of it. Might have dairy or something like I'm like, don't listen to me. If you're if you're actually vegan, I did take a bite. It was delicious. It was like nine out of ten for me. It was so good. I would love to have just like warm, fresh. It was good. Yeah. Good job, Panera. Yeah. Mm hmm. And then I had the fireside chili in a bread bowl, which yeah, it was just like a very hearty, savory dish with beans, chili, you know, chunks of meat. And the sourdough, I thought was fresh. The way that I ate it was,

you know, because they serve it to you with like the top, like the plug off to the side. like the plug off to the side. And what I like to do, and I know this is uncivilized and I don't care, I put that plug right back in there plug it back up so that it like gets covered in all of like the soup. And then I eat the plug. It's like eating, you know how you're supposed to eat the placenta. Michael's also a doula. I don't think the doula's supposed to eat the placenta. I think the mother is. It's a bread bowl. That'd be crazy to just hire someone to eat your own.

Oh. Horrible. Oh, I just imagine my OBGYN like, have you ever had a bread bowl? It's kind of like that. Like you just kind of dunk it back. Yeah. So that's what that experience was. It was a little bit of a struggle.

I mean, I was like, I'm not going to eat my own bread bowl. I'm going to eat my own bread bowl. I'm going to eat my own bread bowl. I'm going to eat my own bread bowl. I'm going to eat you ever had a bread bowl? It's kind of like that. Like you just kind of don't get back. Yeah. So that's what that experience was. And it was the best damn placenta I've ever had. Amen. But yeah, the chili I did think was good. The sourdough I liked. I did kind of do that thing where like I was getting all of the chili because I was scraping

the sides of the bread bowl to make sure I also got bread chunks in each bite. So then I looked down and I was like, oh, because I was chasing those bread sides, I literally ate all of the chili. And I was like, well, I guess I can just tear the bowl in half and then just start eating the bowl, which is what you're supposed to do with a bread bowl supposed to but it still feels so undignified Something but yeah last time I had one. I feel like I was gnawing at it with my teeth Just get in there. Yeah. Yeah, there's there's something very Carnal about eating a bread bowl. Yeah, especially when you do it in like a terat and half and like, yeah, I've already eaten your inside.

Exactly. I already got it you. Yeah. But it was good. But it was good. I will say the quality of the sourdough was something I expected to have qualms with and I didn't. No qualms. I ended up liking it. I remember the last time I had Panera, I remember feeling that the quality of the bread

was questionable, probably four or five years ago maybe. And then there's the chocolate chipper cookie, which we both enjoyed. Yeah, we're chipper as hell. I think it had multiple types of chocolate because it had different shades of brown. I think they had a dark chocolate, milk chocolate mix maybe.

Yeah, yeah. I wrote I F with this. I'm very cool. Michael F's with it. I F with it. But yeah, I went seven and a half out of 10. This is the type of cookie that if I was craving a cookie and I was near a Panera, it would bring me back in

to be like, yeah, sure, I'll get a chocolate shipper cookie right now from Panera. It's enough to bring you back. I hope I'm allowed to speak on, I only took a little nibble of each one, but the cookie was definitely good. Kind of melt in your mouth. Was it the highlight or did you prefer the bagel?

Highlight of the bakery, I'll say. Okay, so you liked it more than the bagel. Yeah, I think I did. So what are you scoring this? Just right on the sugar. I'll say nine out of 10. Nine out of 10. Because it was good.

Yeah, all right, so that is all of the magic of Panera. We gotta talk about the things that are not so good, so let's play that little diddy. This is not so good And that's what you're about It could have done without it That little diddy. Diddy. Can you say diddy? Is these modern times? We're going to have a, was it a freak off?

Is that what, is that, is that the term where the channel's getting shut down? No, you? This is where the channel's getting shut down. No, you want to know where the channel's getting shut down. I'll tell a story that I held to myself last time. So they don't have the charged lemonade. I don't drink a lot of very caffeinated things, but based on the reputation that it has as this thing that'll really amp you up, the only thing that I can draw a parallel to in my own life,

when I was in college, I got a pack of those gas station boner pills. And here I was afraid to say the word hell. You said cucking earlier. Oh yeah, my bad. And you know, I was like, yeah, sure. Let's try this out with a girl I was seeing. And all that ended up happening was my face got very flush and I felt like I was going to die.

I just felt my heart pounding. There was no motion on the bottom half of my body as a result of it. I just felt like my heart was... And like, literally, that's just... When I hear of like Monster Energy drink, Red Bull, or the charged lemonade at Panera, all I think about is gas station boner pills.

I'm like, this isn't going to charge me up the way that it advertises. This is just going to lead to my demise. Yeah, it's probably similar symptoms, but Panera is not selling gas station boner pills. There's a reason. Like, don't don't do that. No, there's room. There's room. There's a place for it.

In between the coffee and the soda machine, there's like a dispenser. Like, just like I feel like there are always like seven of them and they're all different shapes and sizes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's like, what do you pop all of them at once? Yeah, I don't know. But yeah, I just basically that night went to bed with a pounding heart. Oh, God. And I was just, and by the way, I didn't mention this to my girlfriend at the time.

She didn't know that this happened. This was like a, oh, I'll spice things up kind of thing. And I just ended up being like that this was the dumbest decision because I have no idea what's in that. And it did not have any of the advertised positive effects. Oh, God. Charged lemonade. Anyways, none of that had to do with Panera, but it is what the charged lemonade made me think of. Exactly. It probably felt the same.

Okay, so the first thing that I really have in the not good is one, I hate an ordering kiosk, but on top of that, the process of getting yourself in the system was not one step long. It wasn't. It wasn't two steps long. It wasn't. It was three steps long. Yep. And I'm talking about after the ordering,

which in and of itself is a bunch of steps. Yeah. I mentioned it before, but I don't like having to go through all these different menus to customize it the way that I want to. I just want to say to someone, Hey, give me this. No cheese. Yeah. How long did that take?

You know, that was a very quick sentence. And if their job is they're behind this computer screen, they know where all the buttons are. Yeah, exactly. I've never been to this iPad before. So for me, it's a huge struggle to like navigate menus and like, you know, I can tell like some places do headers, some places do footers. Some people just have you browsed by category.

Some people have you typed.