Recently, Panera pledged to quench its customers’ thirst for three whole months. How? Through the Panera Unlimited Sip Club.
Between June 3 and June 30, all new subscribers to this club are promised unlimited drinks, both hot and cold.
More specifically, the membership offers a new drink every two hours, over 20 drink options, and the ability to order both via the Panera app and in person.
However, some customers think the promo is a total flop, as the brand goes viral for failing to deliver on its promise to subscribers.
Panera’s Sip Club becomes redundant with drink outages
In a Reddit post, which was shared to the r/Panera subreddit, OP shared a picture of a notice in their local Panera which stated that its coffee brewer and espresso machines weren’t working. This, according to the notice, meant that customers were unable to get iced coffee, hot coffee, hot tea, and espresso drinks.
The Redditor sarcastically captioned the post, “Join the Sip Club today!”
In the comments, several Redditors confirmed that the much-lauded Sip Club wasn’t everything that it was cracked up to be.
“This happened once for a few days at my location and it was awwwwwful,” one wrote. “People would get so mad.”
“Happened to my store a couple times,” another echoed. “Actual nightmare scenarios.” A third opined that Panera “has high prices and a weird menu.”
The inside scoop
Elsewhere, a further Reddit user shared some insider knowledge of Panera. “The problem is that all the equipment (and stores) is old as [expletive] and corporate won’t spring for anything new,” they wrote. “They just send a person out to “fix” things every other day.”
“Crazy part is, for all the penny pinching they do, replacing everything would probably be cheaper than what they’re doing now in the long run,” they added.
While the commenters bashed Panera, they remained sympathetic towards the staff. “Poor staff probably had to deal with [expletive] all day when there was nothing they could do. Hate people with no compassion,” one Redditor wrote.
With a few weeks left for customers to snag the offer, Panera has time to up its game—it’s just a question of whether it will succeed.
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