It was close to where I was, and I was hungry and the other choices were Chipotle and Hooters. So, Panera it is then. When I entered, I saw one of those touch screen ordering devices, which are always preferable to talking to the sort of person who works in food service, so I used that. I lived near a Quik Check for several months last year and they had a similar thing, which I used fairly frequently. But unlike Quik Check, which showed you pictures of delicious food like subs or mac & cheese bites, Panera's screens showed you pictures of food with so many leafy protrusions, that it looked like it was preparing to attack Dunsinane or something. So I poked through the menu until I found a grilled cheese sandwich. They had an option screen which made it clear they weren't going to sneak tomatos or some shit on it, and unlike even your better diners, didn't serve it with a side pickle oozing juice on the sandwich. So far so good. They also recommended chips with the sandwich, which I thought was a good idea, after verifying that they meant potato chips and not something creepy you might expect from the decor & menu pictures. I also got a cup for soda, after verifying they had normal sodas. Pepsi products, in this case, so I could get Mountain Dew. But as I went toward the drink machines, I saw they had juice and such too, so I thought about maybe getting something a little better for me, what with being in such an experimental mood and all. They put the ingrediants of the drinks right on the machines, which was not a smart move. You only need a couple of ingrediants for lemonade. Lemons, sugar & water. That's it. This lemonade had some other kind of plant in it, and cane sugar as well (cane sugar makes drinks taste like diet soda), so I retreated to safe ground and got a Mountain Dew. At least I KNOW why that drink is bright green. Unlike the stuff next to the lemonade.

Now, here is the thing about a grilled, cheese sandwich. It isn't really grilled, it is fried, but there are negative connotations about frying, so you are only supposed to fry certain foods normally, and others ironically. You make "grilled cheese" by greasing a pan or griddle, buttering bread, putting the bread on the cooking surface, and cheese between the slices, and turning it over until the bread is golden brown and the cheese has melted. When you get grilled cheese AND potato chips, you are, in effect, lubricating your digestive system. These are greasy foods, the way God intended them to be!

But I was eating at Panera. The sandwich they put on my table got the melted cheese right, but there was zero grease and it had, in fact, been grilled, as you could tell from the thin black lines across the bread. Which was more like dry toast that anything else. They put two 1 oz. bags of potato chips on my plate as well. These chips were NOT a wad of salty grease set off by an unpretentious hint of potato flavor, they were stiff, dried slices of potato with an occasional hint of the possibility that salt might have corresponded with them at some point in the past. I mean, for toast with melted cheese and dried potato slices, it was reasonably tasty, but that's not what they put on their menu! I actually sort of missed the pickle that I always throw out!

For a restaurant that gives itself such airs, you think they could get something as elementary as grilled cheese sandwiches and potato chips right. Not to mention lemonade.

I also noted that they had bagels, but anyone from the area including New Jersey and the pretentious hive of buttholes just across the river that somehow usually gets food right, has an idea of what bagels are. Whatever they are, they are not sold in chain restaurants. You go elsewhere in the world and you get a roll with a hole in it, which is probably what bagels are in Panera Bread.

Also, I am not sure what language "Panera" is supposed to be, but I strongly suspect the first sylable refers to the Latin root for bread. So does its name mean "Bread Bread"?

Anyway, I do not recommend this restaurant unless you are part rabbit or something.