Panera Bread reviews

3.4

49% would recommend to a friend

(18,782 total reviews)
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Paul Carbone

40% approve of CEO

32% positive business outlook

Panera Bread has an employee rating of 3.4 out of 5 stars, based on 18,782 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Panera Bread employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Restaurants & Food Service industry (3.4 stars).

Reviews by job title

19K reviews
2.0
Jul 29, 2011
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Many of my previous co-workers actually became friends. Even a manager wanted to hang out after work sometimes. Plus free bread and pastries at the end of the day was awesome. Never had to buy bread!

Cons

The work was HARD. incredibly fast paced and many, many expectations. Certain management would sit in the office all day and be on the computer, while different managers (on different days) would actually be on the floor helping the associates get their work done quickly. They played favorites big time. Corporate was shoving a customer survey down our throats to get a specific customer satisfaction number up (that barely applied to how people ACTUALLY felt in the restaurant), and they made us push this survey so hard at customers that we actually had bad reviews on this survey stating they were annoyed with how they were constantly reminded to fill out this survey! A couple coworkers actually got fired because of two bad reviews, of which neither of the situations they had control of. Also hour were rewarded or cut depending on how many surveys you brought in, a totally ridiculous way of giving hours! Certain people could get away with some things while others couldn't (like facial piercings), Managers would be on their phone on the clock, then turn around and yell because you were on your phone at any given time. The list goes on and on. Overall it was a negative experience for me.

3.0
Jul 26, 2011
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Better than fast food and many other jobs.

Cons

It's exhausting! And the health benefits currently available are horrible if you have a family.

2.0
Jul 23, 2011
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Flexible schedule 65% discount Decent rate for starters

Cons

Too many managers. They contradict and counter each other almost every day. One will tell you to do something one way and one will tell you to do the same thing another way. I've been working for nearly 7 months and they've still yet to train me completely on anything besides dining room. They started training me on prep the first month and then just stopped out of nowhere. From then on, they made excuses whenever I brought it up. They say I'm excellent and it's just too busy to train me whenever I'm there, but they somehow found time to hire four more people and train them in things they weren't experienced in. The favoritism is obvious and if you're not a favorite you WILL get stuck with doing what other workers should have done.At this point I'm looking for another job.

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Glassdoor has 19,079 Panera Bread reviews submitted anonymously by Panera Bread employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Panera Bread is right for you.