Panda Express — Restaurant in Benton

I have now had two disappointing experiences at this Panda Express location (HWY 5 & ALCOA Rd, 20810 I-30 North, Benton, AR 72019). Most recently, on August 16, 2025, I placed a mobile order that was marked as completed at 5:47 PM, even though the food was not actually ready until 6:05 PM. This appears to be a management practice, either local or regional, to pre-complete orders in the system to improve metrics, rather than an honest reflection of when food is ready.

When I addressed this, the manager was professional and apologetic, but acknowledged that this process was based on district instructions. While I understand staffing and training challenges, these practices mislead customers and create frustration. Unfortunately, this is consistent with a prior June experience where my order was incorrect and also delayed.

The food quality has also been inconsistent, with portions lacking protein and meals undercooked. At the same time, I want to be clear that individual employees were polite, and the issues seem tied more to management direction than the staff themselves.

In my opinion and experience, critical reviews for fast food restaurants carry extra weight because many customers do not take time to report a single poor experience. When issues are significant enough to generate reviews, it reflects problems happening more frequently than the review count may suggest.

This location needs significant improvement in honesty about order readiness and food quality. I will reconsider visiting in the future to see changes are made.

This review text was generated with GPT tools, but compiled from actual experiences. All details are factual and fully...

Today I went through the drive thru with a free entree card (because my last visit was bad, and they didn’t give me the food I purchased) hoping to buy my meal and move on, idk if anyone actually reads reviews but I hope you read this one, after charging my card the wrong amount for the food I ordered they refused to refund me the money that should not have been charged on my debit card, after a bit of bickering I asked for a refund because I wanted to leave at this point. The manager abdu refused to refund me, gave me the food I overpaid for and since I was in the drive thru I had no choice but to drive off, after this I realized that he also kept my free entree card that had not been used so I pulled through the drive through again. My second go around went downhill quick, I was met with rude employees and an even ruder manager who refused me my free entree card, a refund, or corporates number so that I could at least get my money back, then to top this all off, he threw a $5 bill at me hoping I would take that, thank him and move on, and as if it wasn’t already bad enough he pulled out his phone and dialed 911, because I wanted my card, a refund or the corporate number. The staff and the management are horrible almost every time I’ve gone to this location. If you’ve read this far I hope that you will at least be weary of eating at this Panda Express, because if something goes wrong you won’t get helped, if I could rate it with zero stars I...

We called the store to see what time they closed, we were told over the phone 10:00. We drove 25 minutes to only get to the drive thru window and was told in a very rude and stern tone that they technically just closed and there was a shortage of food and they only had a few items left that she hadn't thrown away, keep in mind its only 9:25p.m. We then asked don't you guys close at 10:00, she became irritated and upset. We did NOT order but pulled to the window to ask for a manager. The young lady says I am one of the managers. We asked for her name she sarcastically points at her name tag and says "Fancy " is my name. We told her she was rude and we needed the corporate number. She then goes behind the wall looks for number and returns with an even bigger attitude and says I don't have it but I can give you the general manager number. She writes it down and after handing it to us she says and by the way he was the one who told us to close early and slams window .. We called the number given got no answer on first call, but he did call us right back and sounded very concerned when we told him what happen. Abdou (the general manger) assured that this would not happen again and that he would handle this matter promptly. We are suppose to return tomorrow for a meal for the inconvenience. Good Customer service is what keeps a...