Business
Panera Bread sign front 6-21-16

Do You Eat at Panera Bread in Darien? Not After Dec 13, When It Closes

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The Panera Bread restaurant in downtown Darien will be closing on Dec. 13, according to a Darien Health Department inspection report. 

“Establishment closing Dec. 13, 2016,” wrote Mindy Chambrelli, a health sanitarian (inspector) at Darien Health Department, in an Oct. 26 health inspection report just released by the department. (The restaurant received a “Fair” health inspection rating.)

Darienite.com has asked Panera Bread’s media relations department for comment on the closing.

Business
Panera Bread sign front 6-21-16

Panera Bread Said to Be Departing Darien Location by End of Year

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Panera Bread, a popular lunch spot at 1063 Post Road, near the Corbin Drive/Post Road intersection downtown, will be closing up and leaving by the end of the year, Darienite.com has been told. The store, which also has take-out service for its bread and other items, has been renting 3,754-square-feet — the entire first floor of its building, since 2007, when it became the first Panera Bread restaurant to open up in Connecticut. The chain now has almost 2,000 locations. The owner of the building, Greenwich Manor LLC, has been informed that Panera doesn’t expect to renew its lease when it expires at the end of 2016, according to a person who spoke on condition of anonymity. According to a land-use application filed when Panera was being proposed as a tenant at the site, the restaurant was expected to have:

seating for 65 diners indoors;
a 12-foot-by-30-foot patio on its southwest side used for outdoor dining, with about 20 more seats at six tables;
1,520 square feet of space leased in the basement for a cooler, freezer and dry storage;
Seven to nine full-time employees and another 18 to 25 part-time employees.