With Panera, that is.

Over the years, the quality has just gone down steadily, After the merger with Au Bon Pain, I was predicting that it would come to this, eventually. And it has :(. To me and my bread-loving family (the ones that are not allergic to wheat anyway), it’s nothing more now than a pricey fast food place. Their sandwiches are pretty much run of the mill. They may call them fancy names but they are not as interesting or as healthy as they were years back when they first got started as St. Louis Bread Company.

If you could have had SLBC’s Salami on Swirl Rye back in the day, the bread’s crusty exterior a pleasure to munch on, the tightly woven texture of dark and white dough, layers rolled and baked to chewy perfection, the excellent salami sliced thin and piled high, pungent peppers punctuating each bite, the red onions, paper-thin, the crunchy FRESH lettuce (none of that limp stuff masquerading as a healthy green even though its edges are way past their prime), juicy tomato peeking out, and alfalfa sprouts on top, slightly laced with grainy mustard throughout, touch of mayo, a fragrant slice of Emmenthaler tucked in…. you would know what I’m talking about. That, by the way, was dd’s (now 19) favorite sandwich and mine. On our way home from her half-a-day preschool we’d sometimes stop by SLBC to grab a bite. I’m guilty of sometimes convincing her to give me the bigger half of the sandwich, after all, I was the bigger person (she is now, but that’s beside the point).

Sigh…. Panera, what happened to you? Now your bread is more white, your crust is still pretty but you’ve managed to lose your crunch, your French onion soup is just thinned salty brown gravy, your Greek salad is unrecognizable, your cinnamon rolls are dry. I hate to say this but I can actually make better bread than you now. And while the $8 I spent on you years ago was worth every single penny, I wouldn’t want to buy your $8 sandwiches now, even if you took your price down to $4. You’ve kept your pretty but you’ve lost your substance. What artisan bread? It seems you’ve also lost your touch. Your stock may be soaring but your bread leaves me cold. I don’t think we should see each other anymore.