I was cruising up in Davie and stopped in Panera up there for some soup and there was a line out the door; ridiculous. So rather than wait there 1/2 hour I just stopped here on the way home.
This location doesn't have the best layout, there's one big awkward room and then another than reminds me of a school library.
I hate the service here. There is one girl at the register every time I come in and there's always someone in front of me asking 1000 questions. I assume that they use the other registers when it's busy. For once, they had bread bowls. It's really a crapshoot as to whether or not they'll be out of them
It's not a big bread bowl; for $5.39 it's not a great deal unless you eat the bowl, which I didn't. The dude ripped off another piece of bread also, but I'm not eating bread.
The soup is 300 calories and it's 780 if you eat the bread bowl. For me it's just a cool thing, like a happy cup. I don't need to eat the bowl. The soup is one of the only things at Panera that I like, although I don't know why there are carrots on the soup.
It's a light lunch. A decent Broccoli Cheese soup.
Review 5/27/11
I'll start out by saying that I don't like Panera. Every time I hear Cramer rave about this place on Mad Money I just want to call him and tell him "No, no you're wrong". I've had so many things I didn't like; I mean really didn't like, that I'm never going to another one. Unless it's a new opening, in which case I am obliged to do so.
This one is pretty typical; a big place with several rooms with tables and booths.
I don't like their coffee, I had a sandwich I didn't like and the tomato/mozzarella salad I had was just awful, so I decided to try something different. They have a new chili that sounds pretty good, and the vegetarian black bean soup fits my diet. So I ordered a combo where you get 2 small containers of each and a piece of bread.
The black bean soup tasted similar to eating a container of black beans; there's really nothing to it. No onion or garlic flavors. The chili has a lot of good stuff in it, but it's not particularly tasty. It's one of those things that you can eat and feel like you're eating something that's good for you without achieving much enjoyment. If someone dragged me to Panera I'd probably get the chili as opposed to anything else I've had at one of these places. In fact, when I mixed the chili with some of the black beans from the soup it was a lot more interesting. You won't have to worry about sodium; because there's no seasoning used in these dishes.
All I can say is that Tijuana Flats next door looks like it's going to open soon, which is the best reason to come back to this area.