Do you care if more chain restaurants come to Brookside?

• Wix
• Panera has apparently set its sights on Brookside.

With the Kansas City Star reporting that Panera Bread (apparently looking at the former Beauty Express space) may be coming to Brookside in 2012, it’s a sign of how one restaurant might change the entire composition of a neighborhood. Right now, the closest thing to a mass-market franchise is Baskin-Robbins and that shop shares the space with local favorite Topsy’s.

The Plaza is often derided for having too many chain restaurants, although in the past two years there has been an influx of locally owned businesses (Blanc, Ingredient, Cupcake a la Mode and the planned Zocalo and Natasha’s Mulberry & Mott). How would you feel about a Panera in Brookside, and would it bother you if the neighborhood got a few more chains from out of town?