Panera Bread

[silk]

Today I had an informal interview for a job with a doctor and his wife. They wanted to meet for lunch and not wanting to say, "Hello, it's nice to me you, I have a disease," I agreed to go to Panera Bread because I had heard that they had some gluten free menu items.

I had a lovely cobb salad and am very happy to report that I had no bad effects from it. I am very sensitive and usually know within 15 minutes or so that I have been zapped, and nothing happened. Another place to add to my list of safe® places to eat.

Oh, yeah, the interview went well too, without any health discussions.

[Lisa]

  On 12/17/2011 at 12:34 AM, silk said:

Today I had an informal interview for a job with a doctor and his wife. They wanted to meet for lunch and not wanting to say, "Hello, it's nice to me you, I have a disease," I agreed to go to Panera Bread because I had heard that they had some gluten free menu items.

I had a lovely cobb salad and am very happy to report that I had no bad effects from it. I am very sensitive and usually know within 15 minutes or so that I have been zapped, and nothing happened. Another place to add to my list of safe® places to eat.

Oh, yeah, the interview went well too, without any health discussions.

I eat there frequently. It's a pretty high risk for cross contact, but I find the staff wonderfull to work with and they have no problems what-so-ever if something has to be redone, with a smile and no questions asked. And I accept the risk. Great news on the interview!

[Marilyn R]

Yay! Good luck! I know a Practice Administartor in a large pulmonary/internal medicine group with DH. He packs a lunch and goes to work out for the lunch hour. Let us know how it goes... and thanks for the tip on Panera B.C.

[bergyali]

Lucky! I feel like I get sick EVERY single time I go there- within 30 minutes! I watch the staff change gloves, etc- I just think there is a lot of flour in the air!

[Lisa]

  On 12/17/2011 at 2:08 AM, bergyali said:

Lucky! I feel like I get sick EVERY single time I go there- within 30 minutes! I watch the staff change gloves, etc- I just think there is a lot of flour in the air!

My Panera, is small and most likely as many, only bake pre-prepared dough. That would lessen the exposure. But, I am in no means referring to it being safe for people with Celiac. I am only stating that many times it has worked for me, successfully. Yes, lucky

[rosetapper23]

These people are a pleasure to work with, but the one time where they catered a lunch at a conference that I was attending, it was disastrous. I had called them personally about my diet, and they were very friendly and assured me that they would be extremely careful in preparing my box lunch. Well, lo and behold, the meal was prepared as we had discussed....but then they'd placed a nice big cookie right on top of the large salad (inside the box) so that crumbs had fallen into it. **sigh** No lunch for me!

[silk]

  On 12/17/2011 at 3:23 AM, rosetapper23 said:

These people are a pleasure to work with, but the one time where they catered a lunch at a conference that I was attending, it was disastrous. I had called them personally about my diet, and they were very friendly and assured me that they would be extremely careful in preparing my box lunch. Well, lo and behold, the meal was prepared as we had discussed....but then they'd placed a nice big cookie right on top of the large salad (inside the box) so that crumbs had fallen into it. **sigh** No lunch for me!

So sorry that you had a bad experience. It's so disappointing when you have developed a trust for someplace and then have something like that happen. Good to know that it is not the norm though. I have also heard that they use prepared dough or I would not have felt at all safe. It is actually right across the street from where I work so on the days when I don't want to drive home for lunch, which I usually do, it's nice to know that there is an option nearby for me.

Monday night is the finance team's Christmas party and they chose a spot that has gluten-free mexican food so I guess I am going, although I have been there and it's always been safe, it is definitely not my fav.

[krystynycole]

Glad to hear you've had success here...I've never had an enjoyable gluten free experience at Panera

[modiddly16]

I get their smoothies weekly and have never had any issues with it!

[GFinminneapolis]

How did you find out what was gluten free? I didn't see anything on their website.

[Darn210]

  On 5/2/2012 at 11:03 PM, GFinminneapolis said:

How did you find out what was gluten free? I didn't see anything on their website.

If you "build" a meal, selecting items from the menu, it will provide the nutritional information (calories, fat, etc) but there is also a link for ingredients for that menu item at that point.

When you look at the ingredients for something like one of the salads, it will list an item in the salad and then the ingredients that make up that item. The "lettuce" is listed as lettuce but the "citrus chicken" then lists the chicken and all the marinade stuff that is on it. Overall, it says this salad has wheat. Theoretically, if they leave the wontons off, it would be gluten free.

They do have a CYA statement about cross-contamination. That's standard at a lot of restaraunts. However, some are much better at preventing cc than others. Even within a national chain, some locations are much better than others. The only thing my daughter has had at Panera is a Smoothie and a bag of chips. She did fine but that isn't much of a test, so I don't really have an opinion on their ability to manage cc.