Panera Bread 4+

I have definitely started eating more Panera since I’ve downloaded this app about a year ago. I use the rapid pick up often. It is nice to walk into the Panera that has a long line of people waiting to order, and I walk right by all of them to pick up my order that’s already been freshly prepared. And then I walk right by all of them again with my bag in hand, their faces showing confusion and jealousy.

The app works for me most of the time, however, there have been some times where it acts clunky and malfunctions, such as giving me an error when I want to sign up for text updates on my delivery. And it is very frustrating when I want to order some food through the app, but it is not working and not available to use. Sometimes, if I kill the app and restart it, that alleviates the problem. Sometimes the app has been taken down for updates. They do provide a notification when they anticipate it will be ready to use again, which is nice.

I love that the app is synced with Apple Pay. I also like that when I want to add a card payment, it can photograph the credit card so I don’t have to type in the numbers.

I also like that all my Panera rewards are available to see during checkout. I can apply one to my order if I like or save for later.

Overall, this app gets five stars from me. I really like using the Panera app on a regular basis. But I probably eat too much Panera, lol!

Whoever made this app an ‘editors choice’ either lacks knowledge or did not spend much time testing it.
For example, when it comes to payment cards / gift cards connected to the app account, there is a ‘current balance’ but no account sheet showing purchase and resulting balance history. You need a sheet of paper to keep track of the accounting. Starbucks and Dunkin’ do that better.
The GUI is cumbersome and looks convoluted and dated. ‘Profile Settings’ for example has 9 menu entries, e.g. ‘past orders’, ‘payment cards’ etc but you have to log into each of those settings separately. I kid you not: you click on ‘payment and gift cards’ and have to log in to check you balance. You go back and click on ‘past orders’ and you have to login again. You write down the charged amounts and go back to the ‘payment cards total’ and you have to login again. (I am an IT Project Manager and have seen my share of badly designed software, but this is way up there..)
And even though a payment card is connected to the account, when I used it at the Panera Store register the total card balance was updated in the app, but the purchase was not listed - the person at the register suggested to go online and type in the receipt data and request to get it manually updated.
Sorry you ‘editors choice’ award judges - other store apps are way ahead in user friendly design, speed, feature rich design and interactivity with smart devices.