Panda Express — Restaurant in San Luis Obispo

My last Yelp review was on the Froom Ranch Rd. in SLO Panda stating how I was not going back there because of disappointing service. Now going to the SLO Panda on Foothill Blvd., I arrived @ 7:50pm just before their 8pm closing, an hour earlier than the usual hour of 9 pm because of COVID which I don't understand & I don't believe it matters to the COVID. Anyway, you get to walk in & select from the array of actual food you are going to eat which is always a bonus unlike the Panda on Froom Ranch Rd. where you barely walk thru the door, required to look at a menu & pay, then walk around the building & another business suite to the rear to pick up your food; which is inconvenient to the disabled. At the Panda on Foothill Blvd., I received a friendly greeting. I ordered a 3 item entree dinner takeout, seeing there was plenty of chow mein & veggie rice, but just a little vegetable left being mostly broccoli, I asked for half chow mien & one quarter each of veggies & rice. The associate replied they don't usually do that, but would for me; I thanked her. Moving over to the entrees, I selected kung pao chicken, mushroom chicken & sweet n sour chicken. Wait, what do you mean you don't have any of those items when there is clearly an item under each name tag. Oh, they are mislabeled, except for the sweet fire chicken whose bowl is empty but for bits of red pepper & less than a serving of mushroom chicken. She named what entrees she did have which were teriyaki & orange chicken, less than their serving spoon of mushroom chicken, a beef entree ( I don't eat beef or pork), vegie spring rolls & wontons. I asked, "why empty bowls & mislabeled food" & server responded " we are closing." My attention turned to the 6 people behind me 2 of whom were being served & the truck that just pulled up to the front door. So I ordered the rest of the mushroom chicken & negotiated throwing in the red pepper bits left over from the sweet fire chicken to fill the serving spoon, the orange & teriyaki chickens which have no vegies in it & 2 of 3 renaining vegie spring rolls. She generously gave me the third one. I handed her a $10 gift card + $2.35 cash for my bill. She had trouble processing the gift card, called the manager over then he left, she stated she would figure it out later, I stated I would like a receipt, she did some register keying & handed me a receipt & my $2.35 cash back stating that she rang everything up so the $10 gift card would cover it. I thanked her & wished her a good night as she did me. I felt I had just won the lottery in customer service, but felt bad for the remaining customers & thier fate. The food was hot, tasted good & cooked perfectly even though it had been sitting out under heat lamps. This Panda would have gotten 5 stars had they had the remaining entrees labeled correctly & not left empty pans out. I'm sure this is not the first time they had customers coming in near closing. So why not forsee that & have adequate entrees with vegetables left to choose from or have the cook fire up the wok & cook it because it is all prepped? If it looks like there will be leftovers, they could serve a little more at closing or at the manager's discretion, let the staff have it. Yes, I will go back again, maybe next time between 6-7pm to avoid empty pans & mislabeled...

I’m very impressed by this location! This was my first time at this Panda Express. The employees are so nice and the girl working today was so helpful when it came to suggestions! I wish I would have gotten her name but she was fantastic and even helped recommend healthier items to me because I shared that I count my calories. They had one guy on the grill who kept his cool as a lot of unexpected big orders came in (mine included- sorry!) and when they asked him to prep more food because of the increase in orders he handled that so well, if that were me I would have been a mess. Cashier was nice as well, with Covid I even saw him go around the counter to get someone’s fountain drink for them to control how many people were touching things I suspect- great job with the pandemic and being safe. Overall, I’m really impressed by the professionalism and speed of this 3-4 person crew today during a random 2pm food rush, while also following social distancing procedures to the T! You guys...

Panda Express really needs to spend some serious time figuring out their business plan. The online order system is an absolute joke. I ordered this to be ready 30 minutes before I was going to be there just in the hopes they would actually get it right. And yet again they failed miserably. Waited an additional 30 minutes which brought the total to one hour on my wait time. And as a shock to no one, they had ran out of the stuff I ordered so I didn't even get what I paid for. They were filling customer's orders as they walked in and just completely ignoring the online orders. I finally just got in line and ordered what I wanted and told them that I had placed an online order but this blew their minds. Staff was extremely rude and unaccommodating. I am fed up and won't be back. Happens time and time again with no change. Feedback sent to corporate gets no response, so it's clear...