Panda Express — Restaurant in South Elgin

A few weeks ago, I had the worst experience at this restaurant. If I’m not mistaken, the person who served me was named Maria, but I’m not sure. What I do remember is the manager, hispanic lady,Thalia/Bianca Not sure

First of all, my rice was very hard. I let Maria know and asked her to replace it. It would have been very simple to give me different rice or pasta—just take the pot of rice, bring it to the back, and check with the manager or the cooks. But instead of doing that, she decided to replace my rice, then served herself some and started eating it right in front of me, as if questioning whether the rice was actually hard.

After eating it, she asked the cook if he thought the rice was hard. Then, in a really ridiculous way, she asked him in front of me, "This rice is from today, right? Or is it from yesterday?" Which made me wonder—aren’t they supposed to serve fresh food at this place? It was past 4 PM, so if it were in the morning, I’d understand that they might serve rice from the night before. But asking that after 4 PM??

Then, the woman, whom I believe was Maria, told me, "No, sir, the rice is fine." I think the simplest thing to do was just to replace my rice, but her insistence on being right made no sense. I wasn’t asking for anything free or extra food—I simply asked for my rice to be changed.

The funniest part of all was that the manager was right there behind her and ignored the entire interaction as if she didn’t care. Before leaving, I told Maria, "You shouldn’t doubt what customers say." I even showed her the hard, clumped rice and said, "It’s not right to contradict customers. It’s as simple as replacing the food, and that’s it."

I also realized that her manager didn’t care at all—she didn’t even come to the front to see what was happening because she was too busy chatting with one of the employees. So I told Maria, "Remember, without customers, there is no business, and the customer is always right." To which she replied, "Well, not here."

I would love to speak to some one other than the store manager, maybe an area coach or region...

I'm not able to eat spicy foods due to damage done by prescription drugs years ago that have been removed from the market because of creating digestive problems. I tried something that I hadn't seen on the menu when we have ate at Panda Express in the past. Turns out that this new premium menu item is spicy! I chose it because it didn't have a pepper next to the item name indicating a spicy item. It was good tasting but i had to throw that item out and was in gut wrenching pain for a couple of days over 2 bites. I thought something from another spicy item had dropped into this by mistake but the second bite confirmed it wasn't a fluke. I stood back in line to ask if it's supposed to be spicy and the employees said yes but it was a new item and they haven't had time to put the pepper next to the menu item yet. I told them i can't eat spicy foods. They only said sorry. No offer to let me pick another menu to replace what I can't eat. The peppers were miraculously in place before my wife finished eating her vegetable entree. I wasted my money, suffered in pain, and left hungry. Terrible...

When I got to panda to pick up my order the cashier just asked for a name I gave it she said look over there and see if that’s yours so if I wanted to I could have grabbed any order and said that’s mine and take it away which is exactly what happened with my order I order on door dash picked the pick up option drove there for the girl to tell me someone else picked it up when she didn’t even look at my phone to verify the name so anyone can just walk look at the name of any order pretend their the person since cashier doesn’t take the time to verify correctly. So thanks a lot for loosing my food due to your employees not doing their job correctly 🙄 can’t get a refund from DoorDash because your incompetent employees.✊🫵 plus I think the cashiers name was Maria only new cus I saw her photo on wall for...