There’s no shortage of breakfast spots when you need a quick fix on a busy morning, with drive-thru lines aplenty lining either side of the road on your way to work. Although Panera Bread tends to appeal to customers in less of a time crunch, it boasts a hearty breakfast menu with sweet and savory food options alike. We’re partial to Panera’s new Croissant Toast Sandwiches, which bring a little bit of breakfast into lunchtime.
The saddest news about Panera’s breakfast menu is that you can’t order it all day, as the chain has a hard stop of 10:30 a.m. The cutoff falls in line with many other food chains that serve breakfast, like how Chick-fil-A stops serving breakfast at 10:30 a.m. as well, but that doesn’t make the news any better for those of us who enjoy a lazy Saturday morning. It’s contingent upon your particular store, but most Panera Breads dish out breakfast beginning at the ripe hour of 6 a.m., so if you’re really craving a Garden Avo & Egg White Sandwich, you’ll have to roll out of bed on the earlier side to grab it while it’s hot.
The sneaky way to get around Panera’s breakfast hours
While you can’t order a Bacon Double Take breakfast sandwich after 10:30 a.m., you can still grab a few breakfast-y items at any time of day. Most noteworthy are the pastries, things like bagels, cookies, cinnamon rolls, and certain croissants (check out our ranking of seven Panera Bread pastries). Customers can also order breakfast-y sides all day long, such as a fruit cup, a Greek yogurt and berries parfait, or actual pieces of fruit like an apple or banana. We can’t forget about Panera’s extensive line of coffees, teas, and smoothies like the Caramel Latte, Passion Papaya Iced Green Tea, or the Strawberry Banana Smoothie, which aren’t restricted to breakfast hours either.
Despite the popularity of Panera’s breakfast sandwiches, the line wasn’t introduced until 2018. The chain was so vehement about its use of 100% fresh eggs with no substitutes or additives that it petitioned the Food and Drug Administration to redefine the use of the word “egg” in conjunction with breakfast sandwiches, claiming that competing restaurants strayed too far from the real thing. Some of Panera’s breakfast sandwiches include the Steak & Wake, Asiago Sausage & Egg, and the Croissant Bacon, Egg & Cheese, but it also offers souffles, avocado toasts, and oatmeal bowls.