photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

Lawrence's lone Panera Bread location is pictured at 520 W. 23rd Street on Nov. 25, 2024.

Panera Bread — with its menu of soups, sandwiches and sweets — has filed plans to locate in west Lawrence. Now, the question is whether the new store is a sign that central Lawrence is about to lose its lone Panera location.

Panera has plans to locate in a vacant fast food building in the Bauer Farms retail development that is northeast of the Sixth Street and Wakarusa Drive intersection, according to a building permit application filed at Lawrence City Hall.

Employees at Lawrence’s lone Panera, located at 23rd and Louisiana streets, confirmed a new store is in the works, but a manager there declined to comment on whether the existing location would remain open once the west Lawrence store is completed. The manager referred questions to an executive with the San Francisco-based group that owns the Panera franchise in Lawrence. That official hasn’t responded to a request for comment.

Plans show that Panera will go into the building at 4661 Bauer Farm Drive that previously housed the short-lived Flip’d by IHOP experiment. Before that, the restaurant was home to a Zaxby’s chicken finger restaurant.

photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

The former Flip’d by IHOP location on Sixth Street in west Lawrence is pictured on Nov. 25, 2024.

Panera is betting that a third time will be a charm for that restaurant location, which has a Bauer Farm Drive address but has its frontage along Sixth Street. It basically is catty-corner from the Dillons grocery store.

The location also has a drive-thru, which would be something new for Panera in Lawrence. (With today’s weather, soup is on my mind, and with a drive-thru, it will be plenty of other places too — the dash, the floorboards, all six windows …) I’m guessing that drive-thru presence was a factor in Panera becoming interested in the west Lawrence location, as a drive-thru has never been very feasible at the Louisiana Street location.

As for timing on when the new Panera may open, it appears to be a few months off. The city said it has received an application for a building permit, but I believe it is still going through the normal review process. I drove by the Bauer Farm site recently and did not see any construction work underway at the old Flip’d building. So, construction work likely will take a few months.

If you are unfamiliar with Panera, let me give you a tour, where you can find a carb around every corner. As the name suggests, bread and baked goods are a big part of the chain’s offerings. That includes bagels, cookies, brownies, macaroons, a wide assortment of pastries and even a few savory soufflés.

Those offerings make breakfast a big focus of the restaurant, but it definitely serves the lunch and supper scene too. The menu includes numerous hot and cold sandwiches served on a variety of bread types.

As I mentioned earlier, soup is also part of the equation. (It also is a fairly large part of the reason why I’m never allowed to drive my wife’s vehicle again.) The restaurant has about 10 different soup offerings including tomato, baked potato, chicken noodle, French onion and several others. And lest you think we are getting skimpy on the carbs, the soup menu also includes two varieties of mac and cheese.

The Lawrence Panera franchise is owned by San Francisco-based Flynn Group, which owns about 145 Panera restaurants across the country. That group will be making the decision on whether Lawrence’s existing Panera location will remain open in the future. If I hear from the group, I’ll provide an update.

photo by: Douglas County GIS/Journal-World

The location marked with a star is the proposed site for a new Panera Bread location in west Lawrence.