Panera has definitely taken paradise and turned it into a parking lot.
I used to go to Paradise Bakery and get a nice sandwich and a cookie for a relaxing simple lunch.
The Panera version of the chicken walnut comes on stale bread with a cookie that isn't worth eating. The chocolate chip cookie is grainy, hard and a waste of calories.
The lowering of quality from where it was with Paradise bakery to Panera is really astounding. This is clearly a case of a larger company buying out the better smaller company instead of competing with them. Now that they have removed the better company from the market they offer a lower quality option in its place.
Paradise is now lost leaving a mess in its place...