Panda Express — Restaurant in Mason City

We love Panda but unfortunately this location is a bummer place to go. We've gone back several times hoping it was just “a bad day” when we’ve had a not so great experience but it turns out, that’s just how it is here. Every time we have gone, the workers act like you’re an inconvenience as soon as you walk in the door. I don’t expect people to be extremely giddy but we’ve never once been greeted in any way even when we’re standing at the front waiting for periods of time to be served. A quick little “we’ll be with you in a moment” instead of ignoring your presence would be nice. Seems like they all hate their job😬 On top of that, we paid for 80% cabbage/onions in the noodles the last time we went on 4/26. I love veggies but that’s not what I paid for. Wondering if this is a new normal to cut costs company wide or if this was from a shortage of noodles at this particular location and they added all of the veggies as fillers. We don’t plan on going back unfortunately due to the negative experience and atmosphere on a...

The food is always fresh and well prepared that’s the nature of a franchise. You will have a mountain of fried rice but small portions of entree. If you order any of the shrimp dishes, the shrimp are counted so everyone gets the same. If you like spice, get the chili sauce, otherwise the food is tasty, but little heat.

Service is hit or miss. Don’t be surprised if you are waiting in line while staff finishes multiple drive-thru orders before they get back to you. Most of the time they have sufficient food on the line to serve but after a rush you may wait on almost any entree. Staff rarely makes eye contact as they are too busy listening to the headset for the next order from the drive thru.

The dining area is not cleaned often enough. Tables can be wiped quickly,but it doesn’t happen. The drink station has a similar issue. Can’t take but a moment to make it appear clean. None of the free standing tables in the room stand...

CRISTINA, the manager here needs to get a reality check or take her customer service training course again. I don't know how she is a manager by being so incredibly rude to customers and her employees. We came in to order 4/3/23 3 plates to go and 2 orders the friendly Svetlana helped us nicely as should be. But for 1 plate Cristina served my bf who got the exact same thing as me in a 1 scoop lesser portion when asked why she said that how it's done and Svetlana should have given us less too. She had no reason to be rude to the employee who did nothing wrong. And to top it off she put our plates at the registered and just walked off without saying a word. Left us waiting and the rest of the restaurant wondering if she was going to come back to charge us. Very unprofessional on her part and I hope corporate finds out as this will all be...