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Panera is officially time-traveling... and 2016 is the destination. In a month already thick with mid-2010s nostalgia, Panera Bread has launched a limited-time “2016 Menu” that resurrects the comfort-food heavy hitters that customers couldn’t get enough of.
Available exclusively through the restaurant's app, the throwback menu pulls together four items that dominated orders 10 years ago, including the Bacon Turkey Bravo, broccoli cheddar soup in a bread bowl, the Chocolate Chipper cookie, and agave lemonade. None of these ever truly disappeared from Panera’s universe, but grouping them together as a time-capsule meal is a deliberate wink to an era when lunch felt uncomplicated.
The 2016 menu launched last week and runs through Friday. It’s a short window, but the appeal is immediate. The Bacon Turkey Bravo still gives a sweet-savory combo hit of turkey, applewood-smoked bacon, white cheddar and signature sauce on tomato basil miche. The bread bowl, arguably peak Panera, returns as an edible container for its most famous soup. And dessert, in the form of a Chocolate Chipper, is unchanged and unapologetic. Wash it all down with agave lemonade, a drink that screams 2016.
The throwback menu lands alongside another blast from the past: the return of Asiago Bagel Stacks, which first appeared around the same era. Two longtime favorites—the Chicken Roma and Spicy Steak—are now back permanently for lunch and dinner at $7.99, joined by a new breakfast lineup that turns Panera’s Asiago bagels into fully loaded morning sandwiches.
“Our guests asked and we listened—Stacks are back in a big way, including an all-new breakfast lineup that brings both freshness and flavor to Panera’s morning menu,” said Mark Shambura, Panera’s chief marketing officer, in a press release.
Nostalgia may be the hook, but Panera’s bet is broader: that in a crowded fast-casual landscape obsessed with trends, a well-timed look backward, bread bowls and all, still hits exactly where it should.