1. Baked potato soup on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays. MMMMMmmmmmm.
2. Sourdough bread. How can anyone possibly *not* love sourdough bread?
3. Free WiFi. Even though I have the handy dandy AT&T built-in laptop Internet access card, I still love me some free WiFi.
4. Apples as a side item. I *love* apples!
5. Noise. I have no idea why, but I get so much more done in noisy places. In the last hour, I’ve written more at Panera than I have in the last 16 hours or so at home. It’s incredible!
6. Baguettes… especially when taking them home to dip in Nutella. YUM!
7. Pepsi products. Even though I’m starting to prefer Diet Coke to Diet Pepsi, the Mountain Dew fan in me rejoices anytime I see the Dew as an option.
8. Free bread bits at the door. I never eat them (thanks to my Herculean will), but I think it’s super-cool they’re there.
9. Giving back. Panera donates unsold bread to the community each day. I just think that’s awesome.
10. Nice people. I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a sourpuss Panera employee. (Even if, in some locations, they all seem to be trainees.) They are always friendly. To me, anyway.
There’s a Subway next door to the Vandy-area Panera Bread location, and I sometimes stop and think to myself, “Self, maybe we should go Subway today?” But then I just beeline it for the door of Panera, because I never *really* thought about anything else anyway. 🙂