It's been a couple of years now since the Panera Bread Corp of St. Louis got Dan Patterson to sell out completely. However, I can assure you he and his family were the only ones to have benefited.
Quality has gone so far down hill. You can just tell the ingredients are more processed and a manager confirmed many of their food preparations like dressings, toppings and sauces are made in a central kitchen in another state of highly processed quality with plenty of food additives.
That Spinach power salad: I've been belching up that garlic flavor in that poor excuse for croutons for 6 hours now.
You can tell this place is more about corporate up selling as well; you can't walk through the line without some poor under paid employee half heartfelt trying to push their over priced cookies and deserts on you.
What a travesty, I remember when this was a great local chain that prided itself on its quality. No longer, it's lost to an enterprise only interested in the bottom line where corporate strategy includes lowering the cost and, ergo, the quality of food production. Another loss for Phoenix in the fast casual domain. This place is off of our lunch schedule during the work week and should be off yours as well. Support something local and who maintains quality standards.