Panda Express — Restaurant in Queen Creek

Let me start by saying I usually don’t like to give negative reviews. This however, will be my exception. Here is the story of my experience today. I walk in, there are 4 people ahead of me. (I don’t have a problem with that.) There were 3 visible workers when I entered. A mature (not a teenager) woman at the wok/cooking station and 2 younger gentlemen taking orders/serving. I like to order their new “Supergreens” and noticed immediately that it was nearly empty upon my arrival, with only 1 piece of dried broccoli and one piece of cabbage, also dry. I saw the slow moving ‘mature’ lady come over and glance at the supply levels and slowly shimmy back to the wok station. She then proceeded to make a batch of food. I assumed it would be the aforementioned supergreens as it was basically the only one of their foods that was empty. I was wrong, it was another batch of Beijing beef. The Beijing beef was already 3/4ths full!? I just noted it and waited for my turn to actually order. One of the boys that was working the service area had several friends come in and motion to him. He then asked the mature lady if he could take a break soon…to which the mature person answered, "there’s too many people in line". He was constantly distracted by them, gesturing etc.. for the remainder of my time there. I don’t have a problem with that but if I were the manager, I’d have said something as even if they performed at their best, it would have probably been too slow at this time of day. Finally I order, and immediately I get grief as I’m told it will take (at least 4 minutes) to make the supergreens. I replied that I will gladly wait. I then step aside. At this point, the person serving is also moving very slowly…apprehensively would be a better description. I later found out that he is normally the cook but was being forced to work the service area today by the mature lady. That didn’t seem to best time to enforce “cross-training” with it being nearly 5pm and the dinner rush in full swing. The supergreens are finally completed. After having to re-tell the unfortunate trainee several times, my order was completed…and sitting back there. After filling my two identical orders, they closed the boxes and moved on to the people who were previously behind me but got moved ahead of me while I was waiting on the completion of the supergreens. They also had to wait as they added extra stuff to their order. At that point, I would have thought that they would think it terms of FIFO…first in, first out…and go back to my two completed plates…that were just sitting there..and let me PAY to finally get out of there. By now my visit it at the 30 minute mark. Even taking into consideration the extra “4 minutes” to make the supergreens, this is pretty ridiculous. So now I’m dealing with Mr. Distracted. Still giggling/making faces at his visiting buddies. He charged the people that had moved ahead of me….but never took their card. After a few minutes of him looking very puzzled at the register, the nice people came back and said, “You never took our card.”….OHHHHH..hehe he said in what could best be described as a Jeff Spicoli response. “That’s what was wrong.” This is NOT the one I mentioned earlier who was the former cook, (that I actually felt sorry for) …this is the ‘regular’ one who is supposedly used to this machine. Due to his distractions though, he was failing at his job. So now it’s finally my turn to pay. He charged me for ONE dinner….and forgot to bag it. I mentioned that I had two identical dinner plates..and that it might be nice to have them in a bag. (Another Spicoli laugh followed). Finally, nearly 40 minutes later, the door closes behind me for what will be my final visit to that particular...

I’m generally not very high and the expectation category when it comes to fast food, but, We came for lunch with four of our kids and had it for one of the worst experiences we’ve ever had at a fast food restaurant. Two separate ridiculous things happened. First, my wife can’t eat carrots and she ordered their new “super greens“ veggie side with her meal. They told her they would have to prepare it fresh because they were out, she said that would be fine. A couple of minutes later, they give her the meal with the last scoop of old veggies, not the super greens she had requested, I can only assume hoping that she didn’t notice since they prepare the food in front of you and it wouldn’t have been a miscommunication. When she took her meal back and asked for the correct vegetables they informed her they didn’t have what they needed to make it which they should have informed her of from the beginning. When she asked for a refund they said the only way to do a refund is to ring up the entire order a second time and we would receive a credit for the first order three days later. I guess that works, but it seems like a pretty ridiculous and inconvenient way to refund somebody’s money by double charging them and letting that hang in there bank account for three days. The second thing that happened was that after ordering the kids meals when we got to the register after everything had already been prepared they informed us the soda machine was not working because the carbonation was gone. We asked if the lemonade it would work at least and they said it would so we went ahead and paid for the meals. The kids went and sat down and started eating their meals while I tried to get the lemonade. I saw that it didn’t work either so I went back to the register and asked if they had any alternate drinks. They said they only had bottled drinks so I asked if we could maybe have one of those to split among the kids. They said they would have to charge me for it, so then I asked if we could be compensated for the missing drinks from the kids meals and they said they would not do that, so basically they charged us for something we didn’t receive and would not make it up to us in any way. What was really disappointing is that we went there mainly because my wife wanted to try the super greens and our kids were just happy to get a soda with their meal which they didn’t receive. The other frustrating thing is that when we expressed our concerns the manager was talking to us like we were idiots. Overall, it wasn’t really about the money, just the feeling that we were cheated. It was weird that in this situation any number of simple concessions would have made us happy but they were unwilling to do any of those things. Never coming back, which is sad because we’ve been eating there since it opened. Sorry if there are errors in this but I am going blind and was only able to...

Update: we have been back to this location a few times and have received MUCH better service. They almost always are on top of having enough food for busy times and the employees are 1000 times more friendly and personable. Seems like they are getting back to their great customer service.

This location has been our go to for the past six plus years and they always had great service and food. Over the past three or four months, the service has gone downhill, they never have enough food cooked, serve smaller servings, forget to put things ordered in the bag, and the food has been dry on a few occasions. The prior employees are no longer there and it feels like all new management that doesn’t have the foggiest idea what they are doing. I stopped by tonight at dinner time about 5:30pm. There was one person in front of me waiting for food to be cooked. They literally had five different dishes that were empty of food so people are standing around waiting for FAST food while the line gets longer. Three of the people waiting for food said they really have had it with this location because they are never prepared with enough food for the customers and you always have to wait for something. Since that has been our experience the last 6 plus times we have visited, I couldn’t agree more! The employees are not overly friendly and a bit grumpy with customers. Quite frankly, I think it’s due to being so poorly managed. Like seriously! Get someone off their butt and cook some darned food already. Prepare for dinner time! And if you’re running behind, tell the customers THANK YOU for waiting. Really...