Panda Express — Restaurant in Coachella

This is a very difficult review for me to do. I have been a customer of Panda Express’ all over Southern California for years. Recently, a brand new location opened in Coachella, CA, close to where I live. The building is unique in that it captures the pagoda aesthetic through creative modern architecture - the interior is decorated with beautiful traditional Chinese murals and light displays. The ambience is nice, and steps were taken to use architecture to reduce interior noise, which is nice for folks with sensory challenges. However, the praise ends here.

While ordering our food, my wife and I were shocked at the apparent incompetence of every employee on the food line. Some awful and downright dangerous practices we observed:

•I saw an employee take a ‘to-go’ container which had already been prepared with chow mein and two sides bring the container back to the hot line AFTER it was handed back by a customer for having the wrong ingredients. Those ingredients were then hastily scooped out of the container and thrown back into the hot line bowls. This is not only illegal, but a dangerous foodservice practice.

•After asking the line employee to redo my order (a bowl with fried rice and super greens), after they placed the rice ON TOP of the greens (which is not consistent with how this dish is typically served), they redid my bowl, and then handed the bowl WITHOUT A LID to another line employee with a bare hand, and her fingers were thrust into my food as she passed the bowl.

•The cashier asked us three different times if our order was ‘for here’ or ‘to go’ after we said, “To go” each time. And each time they asked, they acknowledged our answer.

•There were five hot line employees working the food line, and each and every one of them had zero focus, and no clear intent with their preparations. They constantly collided with one another as they worked around each other, sharing tasks that would normally fall to each individual, making the whole scene chaotic and careless, while 12+ customers were backed up waiting to start their orders.

I hope that this location is only struggling with the basics of food service because they only recently opened - but corporate training typically irons out all of the glitches prior to a grand opening. The level of chaos and apathy is enough to keep us...

Went in today 08/02/2025 got a bigger plate with white rice, chowmein, spicy orange chicken, broccoli beef, and teriyaki chicken. I was told i would only wait 2 minutes and ended up waiting upwards of 18min to receive my food to dine in. After getting my food i opened my plate just to realize i was serve the wrong rice and also a wrong order of string beans chicken. Front Staff needs 1-1 on training on better order taking and communication with customers. (Props to the young cook that was handling all the kitchen by him self)until he finally got some help from someone to help him with the fresh teriyaki order. Manager marcos should be more involved with his team members to assure that PANDA EXPRESS is a more welcoming eating environment & providing great service all while handing out...

I placed an order online for my friend at this location under his name. When he went to pick it up, the workers gave him a hard time and were refusing to hand him the order. I even provided him with the order number and confirmation text that it was ready to make sure he would be able to get it. Not only did they not end up giving him the order that was already paid for, but they had him order in person again and made him pay for the food a SECOND TIME. Not sure what they want him to do when he gave them all the order information to verify picking the order up. I’m also not sure as to why they had the right to think that it was not his order. He told me he is a regular here and usually has a hard time with this workers at this location...