In a city where eating local is close to a religion, the opening of Vermont’s first Panera bakery-café this morning — smack in the midst of Church Street — probably evoked something close to a collective groan.

At least, you might like to think so. By 11 a.m., though, dozens of people had already made their way across an outdoor patio festooned with balloons, past a clutch of managers and a flickering gas fireplace, to form a line at the bakery counter. Judging from the casual certainty with which some ordered their choices — a cinnamon-crumb coffee cake, for instance, or a spaceship-shaped pumpkin “muffie” — many Burlingtonians are pretty familiar with the chain already. They may know it either from traveling or from having lived in some other American exurb where Panera is a popular — and sometimes the only — place to fortify oneself with “quick-casual” fare while feeding off free Wi-Fi.

In the Upper Valley, for instance, practically every coffee shop (including those in Hanover, N.H., the most uncollegiate of college towns) closes by 6 p.m, rendering Panera the only place to nurse coffee and your computer after dusk. It’s always bustling.

Vermont’s first Panera was one of three to open today (the other two were in Syracuse, N.Y., and California). ‘”It seems strange we were never in Vermont before,” says district manager David Almond, who moved here to help open the store and has had fun exploring local restaurants with his wife, Julie. “[The chain] sells a lot of Vermont products.” Including, he says, the Vermont white cheddar atop Panera’s mac-and-cheese, though neither he nor a person at corporate HQ knew specifically where that cheese comes from.

The arrival of the 120-seat Church Street café enabled some longtime Panera employees to transfer back their home turf, adds Almond. How does he think the chain’s baked goods will fare in the bustling local baking scene? “I think we’ll fit in well. Plus, we’ve given 60 people jobs,” he says.

The chain has nearly 1500 locations in 41 states and is undergoing a seemingly frenetic expansion toward its stated mission of placing “a loaf of bread in every arm.” Another location is under construction in Rutland, due to open late this year or early next. Whether you like it or not, Panera is here to stay.

This article appears in The Real Estate Issue 2011.

Corin Hirsch was a Seven Days food writer 2011 through 2016. She was also a dining critic and drinks columnist at Newsday from 2017 to 2022, and contributes to The Guardian, Wine Enthusiast and other publications. She’s spoken often on colonial era drinking and is the author of Forgotten Drinks of Colonial New England, published by History Press in 2014.

27 replies on “Love It or Not, Panera Bread Has Arrived”

  1. Just be careful with Panera. At least several years ago, they were notorious for sneaking meat into items that seemed vegetarian. For instance all of their soups were made with chicken stock, even something like Cheddar Broccoli. You can check ingredients online I think. Hope they’ve changed so no one else gets tricked, but I won’t be going there.

  2. LMAO @ TIM Why in the world would Panera Bread want a picture of my chipped tooth? maybe in case they found something on the plate that had the other half of the sandwich the waitress took away from my table without even asking me.

  5. My comment isn’t in favor of them? How in the world could you possibly come to that conclusion? I say nothing about the company other then they would be foolish to pay for your chipped tooth without any proof or reason and somehow that makes me in favor of them?FOr the record, no I don’t work for them, never been in one of their establishments, have never eaten anything that has been made in one of their establishments nor will. I do however think the outcry over a business moving to the area and providing people with jobs because they aren’t “local” is just plain ignorant and elitist.

  6. @ JCARTER do you work for panera? your comment seems to be the only one in favor of the company out of all posts on here.

  7. John, of course they aren’t going to pay to fix your tooth. You freely admit you aren’t even sure it was chipped there, and that there was no foreign object in the bread. “my top front tooth was chipped I ASSUME from the hard bread”You really expect someone to believe that you chipped your tooth on bread? With no foreign object in it? What’s to stop you from walking in there with a chipped tooth, eating HALF the sandwich and then make something up? Why would you eat half if the sandwhich if the bread was so freaking hard that it was breaking your teeth? I wouldn’t fix your tooth if it were me…

  8. I personally was verry diss appointed in the grand opening of the Panera Bread on Church St in Burlington Vermont. I was excited about being the first paying customer @ 6AM Mon morning but the employees and management did not seem as enthused as I was. I stayed there for several hours mainly to try different food items and use my laptop. Well their Free wi-fi was not working so they suggested I sit in a certain booth to pick up Starbucks AT&T wi-fi.The 2nd sandwich I ate was the Premium Signature steak on french baguette, when i ate 1/2 the sandwich I noticed that my top front tooth was chipped I assume from the hard bread. The waitress came and took the 2nd 1/2 away after telling her that I chipped my tooth and she asked me if I wanted another sandwich, I said NO and asked to speak with a manager who then after a while came over to me and filled out an incident report and took a picture of my tooth. when I was leaving the Panera bread I spoke with Tom Kelleher the Joint Venture Partner at Panera Bread and I was not assured that they would cover the cost of fixing my chipped tooth, he basically just wanted to know if there was a foreign object in the sandwich. I talked on the phone after several phone calls with the risk manager @ the corporate office and he asked me the same thing which I told him no,the risk manager @ Panera Bread Corporate office stated it normally takes 3-5 days for a response from them. I am not feeling to positive of them paying for my tooth to be fixed and the brief incident they wrote and picture of my tooth was basically to cover themselves.

  9. I second SIGNOBSERVER’s sentiment: that was the 1st thing I thought of when I saw the photo! Outdoor Gear Exchange, who has been in Burlington for years, has to fight to get their sign, which was okay for Cherry Street but not Church Street. It’s the Borders effect again; the city changed zoning just so they could move in. That worked out well – oh that’s right, the company went bankrupt.

  10. Does anyone know why Panera was allowed by P+Z to put their sign on the front of the building when OGE was refused?

Comments are closed.