The Brecksville Detour

I visited Cleveland last week to celebrate my nephew's 6th birthday! Taking full advantage of this road trip, I made a special pit stop at the Brecksville Panera. Over the years, I have driven to Cleveland countless times...always passing signs for this sleepy town outside of Cleveland on 77, Brecksville. Noticing the Panera Bread logo on the blue exit signs, I decided to make detour toward the road less travelled.

My overall findings on the city of Brecksville: Quaint and cute. To be fair, it was just one exit, and that hardly defines a city...but it was nice. Most evertything off this exit was newer construction.

Like most newer developments, the signage sucks. This Panera is wrapped around a plaza that houses Heinen's (a Cleveland area grocery chain), a Japanese Steakhouse, a huge Verizon store, and several other retail outlets. We drove right past the entrance. As luck would have it, I was happy that we missed the entrance because we had to continue driving and eventually turn around at this Brecksville Nature Trail area. It looked like a pretty cool place to take your dog for a walk or to go for a run. Will I ever actually return to do either of these things? Unlikely...but let's be honest, I have done a lot weirder things before. It would be a nice little combination of events: A dog walk at a new trail + Panera Bread afterwards.

The Brecksville Nature Center

The REVIEW:
Date visited: Sunday, February 26
TIme of day: 5ish
Items ordered: Me: Unsweet tea Bob: coffee, black Deb: coffee, hazelnut

Panera to-go

As you can tell from the items ordered, this was a bit of a forced visit. No one was hungry, which is really odd in my family. But we could always use some caffeine. This Panera is sandwich in the middle of a strip mall. As we pulled up, I thought it was going to be a small store. I was pleasantly surprised to see that it was much larger inside than it appeared to be on the outside.

Random NOTES:
- I have said it before, and I will say it again...My favorite Panera's have the purple walls. Why do I like it better? Seems more sloothing, I suppose.

- My mom loves the cinnamon cruch bagels. She wanted me to get her one for the morning...sadly, they were sold out. I have noticed this phenomenom several times. If you have a particular bagel fav at Panera, better get their early.
- Brecksville Nature Center...stop by for a stroll next time you are in town.
- Neat patio area. It wasn't warm enough to sit outside, obviously, but this Panera has a cool patio area. It overlooks the woods.

This picture doesn't do the patio justice. But here ya go..

Boomer came along for the ride...