Panda Express — Restaurant in California

WARNING - If you use the app to order and pay for you food, you will end up waiting at least three times as long to get your food as people who place their orders in person. Your online order (that was supposed to be ready by the time you got to the store), won't be started until you've waited in the special online order line for several minutes, and then the person who starts your order will start and complete a new walk-in customer's order in the middle of completing yours. You'll save yourself a lot of frustration by just going to the store to place your order and NEVER using the app.

Instead of offering free entrees to make up for this and similar experiences, you could actually implement changes to improve this store's process of fulfilling e-based (app and online) food orders. Some possible action steps include the following: A high-traffic store like this one should have dedicated staff available at peak times to complete e-based orders as they are received by the computer system and should be started immediately if the customer selected ASAP (i.e., staff should not wait until customer is at the store to start order). Alternatively, the ticket printouts for e-based orders could be stationed next to the staff who start the in-person orders (i.e., the sides) so that they can alternate between starting e-based and in-person orders (instead of waiting for a rare lull in in-person orders before starting e-based orders). Furthermore, it would be better for the automated order confirmation email to include no "order ready at" time rather than an unrealistic time. Other apps not only notify customers when their order has been started and is ready, but also have an option for customers to notify the store when they are on the way and when they...

Panda Express – Fast, Delicious, and (Mostly) Flawless

Panda Express is hands down my favorite place for orange chicken, rice, and chow mein—quick, easy, and always satisfying. The food was great, the service was solid, and I was soaking up some sunshine by the window, enjoying my meal. Perfect setup.

However, I ran into a couple of hiccups. First, I wasn’t able to leave a tip because they only accept cash tips. I don’t carry cash (because I lose it, it’s dirty, and, let’s be real, I believe cash is evil). If they could allow customers to tip via credit or debit, I’d feel a lot better about my transactions.

Second, I tried to leave a glowing review through the Panda Express app and website, but both were riddled with errors that prevented me from doing so. They need some serious bug fixes because I actually wanted to leave a compliment, and that shouldn’t be so difficult.

On a side note, while I was sitting there, a guy named Kevin was keeping the restaurant clean, which is great—except he spent an oddly long time sweeping around me and banging the dustpan against the floor like he was sending a message. Not sure if he was mad at his boss, me, or just having a rough day, but it was a bit... distracting. I thanked him for being so loud on my way out, and he did apologize while staring at the floor—so, progress?

Overall, great food, great place. Just needs a tipping option, a functioning app, and maybe a little less passive-aggressive sweeping.

#OrangeChickenForLife...

1 star (only because Google won’t let me give 0)

I picked up my order on 7/30 at 8:03 PM, and this was hands down the worst Panda Express experience I’ve ever had. Everything tasted like it was cooked in old, nasty fryer oil that hasn’t been changed in days. • Orange chicken: soggy, greasy, and tasted like burnt fire oil. • Fried rice: bitter and burnt, like it was scraped off the bottom of the pan. • Honey sesame chicken: tasted rotten. Not “a little off”—rotten.

What’s wild is that people are willing to stand in line until the entire restaurant is packed, nearly spilling out the door and into the parking lot, just to get served this trash. You’re waiting 20+ minutes for food that’s not even worth feeding to your dog.

What pisses me off even more is I almost worked for Panda, so I know what their standards are supposed to be. Everything should be hot, rotated regularly, and fresh off the wok. What I got tasted like it had been sitting out since lunch.

You could get fresher, hotter food at McDonald’s—and for half the price.

I’m seriously tempted to go back with the receipt from my phone and the printed one from the bag and ask for a full cash refund—because this was beyond disappointing. It was borderline disrespectful to serve this to customers.

Fix this location or shut it down. It’s a disgrace to the Panda...