My Panera Office

Posts Tagged ‘meeting with co-workers’

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 office away from the office with a joke about Panera Bread. Or, is it a joke, or is it social commentary?

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.

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.

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.

Not all of you are familiar with Skype .  I know those of you who are and are using Skype as your phone service, or at least your long distance phone service, are more than satisfied.  According to the Skype ’s published demographics, only one million baby boomers Skype anyone.  Let me introduce the rest of you to the greatest phone service bargain in the world.

Almost all of us use the Internet to buy airline tickets, books, and connect with family and friends through on-line communities like Classmates and Facebook.  The Internet is a phone service and a darn good one at that.  Not only that you can save money each time you use it.

Let’s get real, how many products, on or off the Internet, save you money, and save you money on something that you use every day.  Just like electricity and water, usually tv provider bills, phone bills are a major portion of our expenses.  I have done the research, and I seriously doubt that Skype ’s two cents per minute can be beat. That is twenty bucks for one thousand minutes (more than sixteen and a half hours). Far more than most of us use. That is the charge from your computer to a mobile or home phone. If you call someone else’s computer, anywhere in the world it is absolutely free.

I use it all the time for international calls. To Benin West Africa 24 cents per minutes…Sao Paulo less than 3 cents per minutes….all cell phones in the UK, Germany, France, Holland and most of the rest of Western Europe for just over 2 cents per minute.

If you are using it for business or just very talkative, you may save more money by subscribing for Unlimited calls to landlines with Skype to USA numbers for $5.95 per month, or get an Unlimited World calling subscription from Skype from $9.95/month.

You pay as you use it. There is no monthly bill nor any minutes that disappear or roll over. One less thing to concern you. Your balance is always visible in the upper right hand corner of the Skype interface.  Your initial deposit can be as little as $10.  We you do use it, you will be leaving money in the bank, I promise.

Besides the savings, there are some great extra features that you cannot get through your cell phone or landline phone. Skype’s conference application allows you to add many people a common discussion.  If everyone has a webcam you can see and hear each other, and since you are using the webcam over the Internet, your call is computer to computer and thus, all of that, ABSOLUTELY FREE.  Phone conferences are the cheapest on the market, because each conferencee pays his or her Skype fee.  But, remember you can – for free – arrange computer to computer conferences wit

How do you get it. Click here:
You will be led through the process. Basically, you fill out a form, download the software, pay a deposit if you wish, and begin using it.

If you want Skype to be your only phone, you can purchase a phone number for $60 per year, $5 per month. So, you can have your own phone number, accessible anywhere in the world and be able to make unlimited calls to landlines anywhere in the world for $17.95.

What more do you want.

Text messaging to your contacts anyone one your Skpe contact list is free and in real time.

Don’t want to use a headset?  You can buy a phone, or even equip your mobile to use all the features of Skype at the same rates.  We the cell phone option, in some cases, you might have to also pay the minutes on you cell plan.

Well, Skype is a great service and great value. Is Skpye a noun or a verb? It depends on how you use it, and I use it extensively. I works for me, so I see Skype as a verb. Without reservation, I recommend you download Skype .

Many of us have a business we run or work on out of our office at home, whether that be a full blown room complete with a desk, computer, printer (cum fax, copier, scanner), white boards, mic. and speakers, file cabinets, and even a globe, or just a laptop and a place to sit in the living-room.  Sometimes we need to meet with clients, co-workers, coaches, or consultants.  Do we set appointments to meet them at home?  Not if we heed the advice of Virtual-Professionals.com, “Should a potential client who is also self-employed and working from a home office wants to meet with you, I suggest that you mention meeting at a coffee shop, which is mutually convenient to both parties.”  Sounds like to me like they are saying, ‘Meet at Panera Bread.’

Seriously, (well I was serious) meeting in your home can be dangerous and less than professional.  Our homes are about the most private meeting places we could arrange.  Many would view an invitation of meeting us there as an invitation to something completely different.  If someone wants to do us harm or rob us, suggesting that we meet at our home office provides them the opportunity for all types of maliciousness.

Besides, we have the fine, comfortable, and quiet acceptable Panera Bread Restaurant available so we can talk and call up whatever we need to on the internet.

Happy, safe meetings with you clients.