Panda Express — Restaurant in West Jordan

UPDATE: 1/14/22 We went back today to redeem our store credit and had a much better experience. Food was hot and ready, employees were quick and friendly, and Edgar even apologized for what happened during our first visit! Bumping my review up from 1 to 3 stars simply because it truly seems like they tried redeeming themselves from our first visit. Still, I'd be wary coming here around closing time, as you probably won't get fresh food, options will be limited, and employees are probably getting ready to go home.

ORIGINAL REVIEW: Terrible first experience here. You’d think a brand new store would be better than all of the other stores around, but that’s simply not the case here.

We ordered a chow mein plate and a rice bowl. Guy at the drive thru window asked us to pull around as they were waiting on more chow mein and would bring it out when ready. We sat there for a solid 30 minutes before somebody came out to give the car waiting behind us their order. When we asked about our order, they made it seem like we were simply forgotten. The kid went back inside and a lady came out. We explained the situation, she went back inside, and another lady came out.

This next lady asks what the problem is. We explain the situation, letting her know that we had been waiting 30 minutes for our food. Eventually she says “so did you not like your food?” and at that point I had to remind her that nobody has even brought out food in the first place. 10/10 listening skills.

She radios back into the store and asks for one of their guys to come out. Employee #4, Edgar, comes out and I explain the situation to him. He offers a simple store credit for our inconvenience, and I decline, asking for a refund to our credit card. He says he can’t do that and basically made it sound like the only course of action within his control was a store credit (which I understand). I asked for his manager’s name and he literally said “we are not authorized to give out names to the public”. When asked why, he says “to prevent scams”??? uhhh.. what??? Okay..

I asked when his manager would next be working and he says he doesn’t know. One of the other employees standing behind him chimed in and said tomorrow morning sometime, but didn’t give a time. So at this point, I couldn’t get any higher up the chain to get this resolved, and eventually settled with accepting a store credit with a few other goodies thrown in there.

But wait! There’s more…

Come to find out, the car that was waiting behind us earlier returns about 10 minutes later while I’m talking with Edgar. The store ended up halving our order and stuck it in with hers. My plate had walnut shrimp, and her husband is allergic to shrimp…Big uh oh..

At that point, Edgar asks me if I want the food that the other customer had just handed over and returned to him. It took me a good second to register his question, wondering if he was about to break some health code violation. I declined.

In a nutshell, this store, so far, is a hot mess. We do have score credit + some goodies for their mess up, but it felt like I was fighting tooth and nail just to get to that point. Employees wouldn’t give information when asked, and isn’t them attempting to give me returned food in violation of some health code somewhere?

We ended up going to the Jordan Landing store up the road and they treated us 10 times better, actually got our order correct, and we didn’t have to wait 30 minutes for it. Go here at...

I’m not sure if they have some like special ed or disability hire initiative going on there, but it is actually insane how long it takes to order your food. You’ve got like 4 people wondering around doing nothing and 4 people at the counter dishing up food and it still take 30 minutes to get through the line. Every time I want Panda Express I always debate if I should go to this location or not because each time is so inconvenient. But I always talk myself into it and ALWAYS regret it. I’m not trying to harp on workers or be a jerk. I get it, fast food workers are treated poorly, but jeeeez this is like next level incompetent. Today when I went there was two people in front of me and it took 35 minutes to get through the line. Halfway through ringing the lady up in front of me the cashier walked away and started asking a question to another worker and then they walked through the lobby to a closet. And then he came back and finished ringing her up. He wasn’t doing anything for the order, it made no sense what he was doing and why he just left. I thought for sure maybe he was getting something like receipt paper or teriyaki sauce packets or more cups but literally nothing. By the time I got my food there was a line out the door because of how long it took. Just wildly inefficient in every way. And to top it all off I didn’t have a fortune inside my fortune cookie :( (although it was true, that was...

I ordered 2 plates, one had half ham fried rice half chow mein, the rice was still hard ( not cooked all the way) the noodles were dry and no flavor, we also had teriyaki chicken and walnut shrimp, the shrimp were mushy and had no flavor, the teriyaki was still pink in the middle. I really feel like I got ripped off at the 7800 south 5500 west location, I’ve never had such a horrible experience with panda. It’s sad to pay top dollar for such bad food. Management needs to step in and direct their employees on how to cook. Also we tried to enter the restaurant but it was as if the doors were locked, we could see people inside, there were other people that tried to enter as well but were unable, there was an employee standing near the door but he never offered any help in opening the door. Several people left because they figured they were closed for the night. I ended up going through the drive through to order my food, I ended up parking in a stall to wait for my food to be brought out to me, at that point I asked if the lobby is closed. The girl said no but said the door is hard to open. It would be wise if they could put a sign on the door just letting people know that they need to pull on the door as if they are trying to pull it off the hinges. I don’t recommend going to this location Jordan landing is a little further away but well worth the...