Panera Bread opens in LIC

Panera Bread café and bakery recently opened its first Queens location in Long Island City, and 11 more shops are expected to follow soon.
The new restaurant is located on 35th Avenue between Steinway and 38th Street in Long Island City, and Assemblymember Michael Gianaris is excited about what the store will bring to the area.
“I welcome Panera Bread to our already thriving western Queens business community,” he said. “The addition of a community-minded business like Panera Bread to our neighborhood will contribute to economic growth throughout Queens.”
Panera Bread is a bakery, café and restaurant chain that began almost 20 years ago. It has a menu for breakfast, lunch or dinner and features organic, all-natural and whole-grain food options.
The bread is made each morning and any bread products that have not been sold at the end of a business day will be donated to City Harvest. The company has worked with City Harvest through its Long Island restaurant and wanted to continue working with them at its new locations in Queens.
“It is their way of giving back to the community,” said Patricia Friia, a spokesperson for Panera.
Panera Bread has gained popularity through its “easy to use” catering service called Via Panera, which it hopes will attract many businesses in Queens.
It also provides free Wi-Fi Internet connections for customers in their restaurants.
While Panera Bread has already opened locations in Long Island, they feel it is a natural extension to create branches throughout the city, and it already has plans to open locations in Douglaston and Woodhaven by the spring of 2008.