Jake Shane Talks Panera Favorites and Responds to Critics Over Viral Interview Clip (Exclusive)

Jake Shane is having a mix-and-match summer!

The podcaster and content creator told PEOPLE all about his new partnership with Panera on their Mix & Match menu, along with sharing his response to recent viral criticism of his interviewing tactics.

The podcaster’s love for the restaurant chain started when he was a kid, when he would go with his dad.

Now, the content creator has created a “Pass That Panera” meal with the brand, the name a riff on the Instagram account on which he rose to fame, which is called @passthatpuss.

His menu includes his favorite picks on Panera’s Mix & Match menu: the Chicken Caesar Salad Stuffer, a salad stuffed into a hollowed-out Italian roll, the Fuji Apple Chicken Salad and Homestyle Chicken Noodle Soup.

With the Mix & Match menu, guests can get two or more half or cup portions of items for $4.99 each, along with a complimentary side. The Chicken Caesar Salad Stuffer is on this menu for a limited time.

“I love the Chicken Caesar Salad Stuffer,” Shane raved. “And I don’t like chicken caesar salad wraps, but I really like that.”

He said his love for noodles gave him an affinity for Panera’s Chicken Noodle Soup. As for the Fuji Apple Chicken Salad? “I needed greens,” he said.

The podcaster was recently the center of viral criticism after a clip from his interview with singer Kacey Musgraves on his podcast Therapuss went viral. Some people online were critical of a question Shane asked about a lyric in the country artist’s 2018 track “Slow Burn.” 

Shane told Musgraves that his favorite lyric in the song is, paraphrased, “In Tennessee, the sun’s goin’ down/But in Beijing, they’re headin’ out to work.”

“What do you mean by that? Me and Manny, who I work with, debate it every single day,” he asked Musgraves.

“Really? It’s not a deep-coded thing,” Musgraves replied in apparent surprise.

After he prompted her, she said, “It literally just means what it means.”

The exchange gained attention on social media, where people questioned if Shane understood the concept of time zones. The moment also sparked media coverage.

The influencer responded to the viral reaction over a week later in a set of Instagram Stories, writing “like I’m ready to laugh. we can laugh” in overlaying text over two screenshots of the online critiques.

“If I don’t laugh, I’ll cry,” Shane captioned a TikTok sharing the images.

The influencer had previously ignited an online conversation when he was asked Julia Fox whether she agreed that the kid in the Oscar-nominated film If I Had Legs I’d Kick You was “annoying” at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party in March, prompting Fox’s response that it was “society’s fault” for not being conducive to mothering.

Following the online conversation the interview prompted about whether content creators should conduct interviews on red carpets, Shane told Entertainment Weekly, “After I hosted the Vanity Fair Oscar Party carpet, I knew I needed to adjust my approach for high stress environments.”

“My podcast and comedy is often so off-the-cuff, it was sometimes hard to not be in that ‘mode.’ Now I know to go into projects like that with a different mindset,” he added.

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