My Panera Office

Archive for the ‘Resturant Meetings’ Category

Panera Bread cafe, restaurant, bakery…Oh, what do we call it.  I call it my office away from the office, office away from home.

Panera has been a meeting place for the whole range of visitors, ranging from the casual teenagers to the busy businessmen. I have seen them there.  I have had my friends sitting across from me in the flesh, too.  But, like many, I often sit there with my laptop open, smelling the fresh pastry, sipping my coffee and chatting with my friends on the screen.

Some call them “virtual friends”, but those are the ones who do not know how close we have grown once again to old school mates, for work colleagues and workshop attendees.  Then there are the scores that we have never seen, yet due to where they live, their interests, or the fact that they are friends of our friends, we have met only on this screen in front of me.

Be they Facebook or Twitter friends, or LinkedIn, ahha professional, network partners (got to be careful with the vocabulary here, they are from the workplace), I am so thankful that I can connect with them from this my office bakery over Panera Bread’s most often great, free wifi.

Panera Bread enjoys the recognition of being one of the largest dine-in, bakery chains in the United States, a leader in the field of specialty bread, and that special way they showcase their sweet wares make any morning with my friends special.

There have been cases when our mobile phone internet applications have left us stranded when we need it the most. At these times it is Wi-Fi and free networking zones which have helped us through and to help our brains to cool off and release the tension. A hot coffee has worked wonders and bread from one of my favourite places, Panera Bread does the rest of the job. Panera Bread has made it so convenient for people to enjoy a hot cup of coffee and work or network with free wifi service.

Morning is one of the best time of the day for any person to enjoy coffee and soft, amazing tasting bread at Panera Bread while finishing all your work in a jiffy without paying anything for the wifi service. It just makes the day for anyone. A cup of coffee helps to get rid of all the mental stress you might be going through at times and having it at Panera Bread in that amazing environment which just to your liking, not loud and absolutely soothing along with the best bread available makes you forget all the tension you were going through just some time ago when your office network suddenly crashed.

Panera Bread has been serving great bread and coffee to thousands of people everyday for a long time. It has now made its mark a permanent one in the minds of people with the introduction free wifi service to help people not miss any of their work or any fun even when they are at Panera Bread.

Panera Bread has not only set standards in bread making and coffee but also its service but now it has spread to new limits with mixing of free networking zones for people. It has set a benchmark in add-on services at bread and coffee houses for others to follow.

Networking with clients at Panera Bread

Compass Group North America’s Panera Bread has surpassed expectations of many and has emerged as one of the best casual eateries in North America. The journey that it began by expanding in 1990s has now gathered steam.  The company now operates through over 1362 cafes in 40 states and in addition to this it has fresh dough selling bakery-cafes.  This provides plenty of places to hook up to the free wifi and network with clients.

Busy people may find it hard to squeeze in some time in their daily schedule to have a proper meal or nutritious snack while working.  However, my Panera bread office is simply the most ideal way to combine office in kitchen. This mobile office attacks thousands of customers every day. The environment at any Panera Bread café is simply delicious with sweet smell of fresh bakery products always in the air.

It serves both as kitchen and office to many since Panera Bread offers free Wi-Fi connectivity in its cafes for more me and the rest of its customers.  Together with fresh hot coffee it serves a great, stable Wi-Fi connection up.  It is the perfect environment for networking.

A study reveals that in every five minutes a person tweets from Panera Office enjoying.  I am one of them, yet not every minute, of course.   People not pnly use laptops, but like me, they often sip a coffee while connecting to the world through their mobile phones.

Panera Bread outlets provide free coffee refills along with a great environment for mobile office. This just makes your experience more satisfying. This chain now operates with the largest free wireless networking in USA. The Wi-Fi allows you to connect several devices with Wi-Fi capability, however they restrict the Wi-Fi during peak time to an hour at many locations using filters.

You might never feel the work load while you are working from one such eatery that provides Wi-Fi along with a great ambience for work.

Related Posts:
Panera’s Free Refills Still Bests Starbucks New Trenta
5 Reasons to Office at Panera

Enjoy your Panera office away from the office or office away from home, and know that some of the profits of your purchases go to offering the same Panera breads to those who cannot afford them.

The Panera Bread Foundation opened its second non-profit community cafe — called Panera Cares — on November 22nd in Dearborn, MI.  Panera has plans to open another in Portland, OR, in early 2011.   The first was openned in Clayton, MO in May.

From PBT Consulting: Customers who stopped in for their morning coffee and brioche Monday at the Panera Bread eatery in Dearborn got a surprise: a menu board that no longer has prices but “suggested donations.”

From Dearborn Free Press Dearborn, a Detroit suburb, was selected as the location of the second Panera Cares Cafe based on a diverse population of individuals who can sustain the cafe as well as individuals who may need a hand up.

Well I guess it is alright to celebrate the staff at Panera being at the office. After all, without them being in the office, we could not be setting in our office and being served by them.

So, hats off to the Panera Bread personnel at our favorite restaurant office.

This panera in South Bend, IN won an office of the day contest.

Panera Ranks Number 1

Health.com lists Panera number one among America’s Top 10 Healthiest Fast Food Restaurants. The food at our favorite place to office is appreciated by top health experts.

Health.com say they “scored the chains on such factors as the use of healthy fats and preparations, healthy sodium counts in entrees, availability of nutritional information, and the use of organic produce to determine the 10 highest-ranking restaurants.”

To read the entire article click here.

5 Reasons to Office at Panera Bread

Panera is one of my favorite spots to sit down, open up my lap top and talk to the world and the person in booth next to me.  Here are my 5 favorite reasons for doing so:

• Panera has some of the best coffee around, they serve it in a great mug and I can help myself to fresh refills whenever I please.
• The smell of bread and pastries being baked is much better than grease or incense that I smell in other hangouts.
• There are free samples of fine breads or their newest cookies near the door.
• There is not waitperson coming around to put a check on my table and say “whenever you are ready.”
• Clients love to meet me there.

Here are just some random tweets today (Nov.  12, 2010) how more and more people are using Panera Bread as their office.  I am not sure if it is the economy, the smell of fresh baked bread, or the free wifi, but Panera is the office on the run for many:

• just sitting here at my new office…. Panera’s parking lot
• Ever noticed how at daytime, panera becomes a quasi portable office space for deadbeat businessmen? Weird.
• I am headed to the office, panera bread
• Panera is always my office on the road…
• Panera is one of my favorite office locations… Good coffee to.
• Remote office today! (@ Panera Bread)

We are a going band.

The large number, almost every five minutes, of tweets coming from people using Panera Bread’s Wifi while enjoying a hot cup or a sandwich are increasing.  Many are using their cell phones.  Look at the Twitter search result for Panera Bread and you will see that you and I are not alone in our appreciation and use of the eatery’s internet connection.

To set up an office for a few hours on the road or just going down the block to work, Panera Bread and Starbucks seem to be favorite options for many of us who like to work around food and a nice ambiance, yet away from the pad where we sleep.

There have been a lot of comparisons of these two ‘restaurants.’   See look at their stocks from all angles so decide on buy, sell, or hold.  Seeking Alpha did that a couple of years back, check it out.  Barron’s discussed both of their excellent earnings results in January.  Read the article, then call your broker.

An owner of several franchises of each lined them up from an owners perspective.  If you have a lot of cash and are interested in becoming an owner, look this over.

But readers of this blog are interested in the customer service and their wifi.  Hands down, Panera wins out.  The bakery chain has a much more suitable seating area, with actual tables and booths.  Much better than Starbuck’s lounge chairs for setting up a temporary office.  More importantly, we want to save money.  Panera’s wifi is free and most of the time it is more reliable and faster.

What about this as a Panera bonus.  According to an article in the Chicago Tribune last year, Panera Bread’s coffee is as good as Starbucks, but cheaper.

I am a loyal Panera Bread cutomer, and proud to count it as my office away from home.

How do you compare Starbucks and Panera Bread?