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Panera Bread Is The Largest Provider Of Free WiFi
ayb11 writes "According to this article, the Panera Bread chain of Bakery/Cafes (think Starbucks that bakes their own bread) is the largest provider of free WiFi in the US. Their web site says, " There are currently 573 Wi-Fi enabled Panera Bread bakery-cafes, from California to Virginia. More are added every day." (Even my retired dad takes his barely-used laptop over there so he can get free refills on coffee.) Their full list of hotspots is here."
Offering free wifi costs them a lot of dough.
"uuuugghhh need more bran"
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
If only they served alcohol.
Insert Generic Sig Here:
It's just factored into the prices. Panera is good but pretty pricey. I doubt they would let someone who doesn't order anything just sit in their and use the internet for a prolonged period of time. It's a resturant, not a coffee shop.
So their bread is overpriced and burnt but served by attractive female bakers so you keep coming back?
"People that quote themselves in their signatures bother me" - athakur999
I've used the local one more than once. Only thing I've noticed is that it's sometimes fairly laggy even when there aren't more than one or two people on them.
:)
And the sandwiches are pretty good, too. Strong coffee also
Companies act like it is a cripling cost, but what $60/month for cable, when customers will use this feature if you have it, it will even draw people to your store. Giving it away for free should bring them more people one would think.
but then again starbucks has such a big customer base that those people don't care what they pay for WiFi as long as they get their mocacappachino that costs $8
They are still called The St. Louis Bread Company here in St. Louis
Panera's became my home office for 3 months last year. Every day, constant free coffee refills, and plenty of lunch-crowd eye-candy from the local office complex.
Course, there was that time when someone sniffed/watched-over-my-shoulder while I was paying my bills and the next day I had to dispute a bunch of charges... but for just hanging out, a great place.
Had hoped they could force T-Mobile to be more competitive, but this isnt something new and last I looked Starbucks still had ridiculous fees.
I don't think it's unreasonable for businesses to charge for this, but it sure doesn't make a lot of sense to me when many are pushing "subscription" models to their customers.
Went last night to Barnes and Noble and noticed they had a "Wi-Fi" sign. So I figured this is great, I hang around look at some books and catch up on my email, but lo and behold you have to pay for a 19.99 monthly (1-year min) subscription fee! Why would I pay for ISP accesses that is so limited?
Yeah, they have a 2 hour $4 accesses, but this doesn't make much sense to me. The real attraction here is that if you want people to hang around your store, just offere it up for free, or charge a very minimal amount for usage that day (not for time).
- sigs are for wimps.
Mmmm... Panera.... [droool]....
Best. Shortbread. Cookies. Ever.
"Lawyers are for sucks."
- Doug McKenzie
I listened to those guys all the time growing up. Shame about their guitarist.
Now whats this about bread?
Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
I used a Panera Bread hotspot last weekend to test my employer's new VPN client software. Needed an environment different from my home to isolate a problem.
Two cups of "Colombian Supremo Reserva del Patrón" later, well, I hadn't solved the problem, but I was certainly focused on it.
org.slashdot.post.SignatureNotFoundException: ewg
I thought "linksys" was the largest provider of free WiFi in the world...
Not only did they respond, but they actually left me on the list as they kept hitting reply-all and I got to hear all the details about the progress of the mall's wiring that was holding them back (they told me they had to wait for work being done on the mall).
The service was actually activated months before they told me that it would. I've used it several times since then. Very nice! Now if I could only bring myself to take up a table for 3 hours while enjoying a single bagel...
www.HearMySoulSpeak.com
I work about 2 miles from a Panera in Atlanta adjacent to Emory University. The Panera is within walking distance from the university. Let me be the first to say that free WiFi and a nearby college student population pretty much guarantee that you will be in a line of 30-40 college kids carrying various WiFi-enabled laptops.
Thankfully, many of the college girls wear their PJs to class and lunch, so it makes the line seem a little shorter. Ahhh..."hot buttered buns at Panera." Oh shit! Who turned on the mic?
IronChefMorimoto
At least at the local Panera, their free wireless connection comes equipped with the SonicWall "firewall" which blocks visits to web sites based on substrings contained in the url. The list of substrings includes things like "sm" and "cum" -- so for instance you can't google for "cosmonaut" or "accumulator" or visit the Southern Methodist University web pages. Unless, of course, you take the care to use the escape codes %xx in place of one or more of these letters...
Just wondering, is this paragon of stupidity in place at other Panera locations?