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Apr 19, 2016  Mike Mozart via Flickr // CC BY 2.0 / Mike Mozart via Flickr // CC BY 2.0 Panda Express is the biggest Chinese fast food restaurant chain in the United States. Famous for its orange chicken and chow mein, it has over 1800 locations and 27,000 employees around the world. In 1973, Chinese immigrant Andrew Cherng and his father Ming-Tsai Cherng used a loan from the Small Business Administration to open a Chinese restaurant in Pasadena, California. Called Panda Inn, the restaurant was so popular that it expanded to four more locations in southern California. The first Panda Express, a fast-food version of Panda Inn, opened in 1983 at the Glendale Galleria in Glendale, California. Husband and wife co-founders Andrew and Peggy Cherng still own and run their privately-held company, The Panda Restaurant Group. No franchising is allowed, and the company owns and operates all the Panda Express stores (except for the stores inside universities, which are usually licensed to the university).
Andrew and Peggy met at Baker University in Kansas, and they later got advanced degrees (Andrew in Applied Mathematics and Peggy in Electrical Engineering) at the University of Missouri in the 1970s. They got married in 1975, almost a decade before the first Panda Express location opened for business. Last year, customers bought 67.9 million pounds of orange chicken from Panda Express, making the sweet and tangy chicken dish the most popular item on the menu by far. First created in 1987, the orange chicken recipe is a closely guarded secret. What we do know is that each batch starts with frozen, breaded, boneless chicken nuggets that are deep fried before being dipped in the orange sauce. Peggy’s background in engineering and software design gave Panda Express a technological advantage. In the 1980s, the company was an early adopter of using computers to make ordering in stores easier and to collect data about the highest selling items at each store.
Andrew and Peggy’s daughter Andrea, Panda’s Chief Marketing Officer, helps oversee Panda’s Innovation Kitchen in Pasadena, California. The purpose of the kitchen is to experiment with new dishes, design, and décor. Open to the public, the Innovation Kitchen offers intriguing menu items like a honey walnut shrimp wrap with papaya slaw, orange chicken salad, and scallion pancake wraps.
Andrew and Peggy take an unusual approach to managing their employees. Panda Restaurant Group’s headquarters has motivational posters on the walls and Stephen Covey books on the desks, and the company gives its workers discounts on self-help and leadership books. Strongly encouraging everyone to enroll in “human potential seminars” like Dale Carnegie, Life Academy, and Landmark Education, Andrew hosts programs for his employees to do Zumba, hear motivational speeches, and learn self-defense skills. He also created a mandatory program for employees, The Panda Way, requiring a healthy lifestyle, continuous learning, and interpersonal relationship skills. The Panda Restaurant Group also owns and operates Hibachi-San, a Japanese fast food chain that serves teppanyaki and sushi at locations across the United States. According to Andrew and Peggy, they decided to start opening Hibachi-San in malls in 1992 as a defensive strategy to protect Panda Express from competition from Japanese fast food restaurants. Instead of trying to beat the competition, become the competition! For fast food, Panda Express is surprisingly health-conscious. The menu offerings have no MSG added (either at Panda Express locations or by ingredient suppliers). Plus, the Panda Tea Bar is a new feature that’s cropping up at some Panda Express locations, allowing customers to order customizable teas and juices, with optional wholesome add-ins like aloe vera and chia seeds.
The Panda Express at the Ala Moana Center food court in Honolulu, Hawaii is the company’s most successful location with more than $4 million in yearly revenue. That's a lot of fried rice! Started in 1999, Panda Cares is Panda Restaurant Group’s official philanthropic organization. By participating in food donation programs, asking customers for monetary donations in Panda Express stores, and giving employees the option to donate a portion of their paychecks (90 percent of employees opt in), Panda Cares has raised $48.5 million for children’s hospitals and disaster relief. Panda Express is the biggest Chinese fast food restaurant chain in the United States. They are especially famous for their chow mein and orange chicken – the latter of which sells up to 80 million pounds a year, or four pieces for every man, woman and child who lives in the United States. Most of their 2000 locations are in the United States, but they also have stores in Canada, Mexico, South Korea and other countries in recent years. Often, with popularity comes a fair share of criticism. Panda Express is mocked for being “inauthentic” or “fake” Chinese food. As someone who lived in Mainland China for four months, I can definitely concede that you won’t find General Tso’s chicken there, nor will you find orange chicken that’s quite as sweet and fried as Panda Express’ take. According to some popular YouTube videos, a number of Chinese people agree with that. Image Source: Forbes But Panda Express claims that it was never trying to be an authentic Chinese restaurant. Instead, it’s a completely authentic American Chinese restaurant – a restaurant begun by Chinese immigrants seeking to make unique Chinese flavors and recipes appeal to the masses in the United States. As daughter of Panda Express founders Andrea Cherng put it, “It’s a story of immigrant Chinese chefs and families coming to the U.S., for what they hope will be a better life. It’s a story of taking the recipes and the repertoire of their own culinary skill set and making it appeal to an [American] national palate.” Why is it Called Panda Express?Panda Express all started when Chinese immigrant Andrew Cherng and his father Ming-Tsai Cherng took out a loan to open a Chinese restaurant in Pasadena, California called Panda Inn. Panda Inn didn’t look much like Panda Express does today – it was a sit-down, more upscale restaurant. Panda Inn ended up being so popular that it expanded to four more locations in southern California. Cherng decided to open a fast-food version of Panda Inn in 1983. To differentiate it from the upscale Panda Inn locations (still open today and owned by Panda Restaurant Group), he called it Panda Express to emphasize the quick service. Their first location was inside a shopping mall in Glendale, California. At first, Panda Express restaurants were only found in food courts in major shopping malls – today, the company has expanded so much that less than 2% of its restaurants are now in malls. As of 2014, Panda Express had annual sales of over $2 billion and close to 25,000 employees. Image Source: The Daily Journal Today, all Panda Express locations are still owned and operated by husband and wife co-founders Andrew and Peggy Cherng. Yep, all 2000 of them! No franchises. Panda Express is also known for playing their employees well, offering competitive benefits and giving back to the community – they’ve donated over $107 million dollars over the past 20 years to various nonprofits. What do you think of Panda Express? Do you like its American Chinese style, or do you prefer more authentic Chinese flavors? Let us know in the comments below! Emma Roberts is a freelance writer and editor who is passionate about learning, traveling, and language. She received her bachelor’s degree in Sociology at Brigham Young University |
What came first Panda Inn or Panda Express?
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