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Exterior view of a Panda Express restaurant.

Panda Express is a giant fast casual restaurant chain serving Americanized Chinese cuisine. It operates mainly inside the United States of America, in shopping malls, supermarkets, airports, strip plazas, theme parks, and college campuses. In 2004, the company began opening stand-alone restaurants with drive-through windows.^[1] Panda Express has 911 restaurants covering 35 U.S. states and Puerto Rico, as well as 2 locations in Japan ^[2]. The chain offers a wide variety of food such as Orange Chicken, Beef with Broccoli, and Mandarin Chicken. Most combo meals are served with fried rice, steamed rice, or chow mein; however, mixed vegetables can be substituted in their place.

Panda Express is headquartered in Rosemead, California. It is a faster, more casual equivalent of the more upscale Panda Inn, from which the chain concept was derived.

The Panda Restaurant Group, parent company of Panda Inn and Panda Express, was founded by Andrew and Peggy Cherng, Chinese immigrants from the Yangzhou region of China's Jiangsu province. They started their first Panda Inn restaurant in 1972 in Pasadena, California. In 1983, Donahue Schriber Real Estate, the manager of the Glendale Galleria, invited the Cherngs to develop a fast-food version of Panda Inn for the Galleria's food court, and Panda Express was born.^[3] The chain has steadily expanded across the United States since then. With over 800 locations, it is now the largest Chinese fast food restaurant chain in the United States. It is also one of the few fast-food chains in the United States to pay its employees significantly more than federal- and state-mandated minimum wages.^[4]

The company's highest revenue location, bringing in over US$4 million annually, is located at the Ala Moana Center food court in Honolulu, Hawaii.^[5]

A Panda Express will be added to Six Flags Great Adventure and Cedar Point for the 2007 season.

• Panda Express

1. ^ Bruce Haring, "Panda gains higher visibility for chain amid shift from malls, food courts," Nation's Restaurant News, 9 August 2004, 6.
2. ^ http://www.pandaexpress.com/locations/locator.aspx
3. ^ James Flanigan, "Cooking Up a Powerhouse of Chinese Fast Food," Los Angeles Times, 8 October 2001, C1.
4. ^ Krantz, Matt. "Panda Express spreads Chinese food across USA", USA Today, 2006-09-13. Retrieved on January 17, 2007.
5. ^ Shimabukuro, Betty. "Orange Chicken on the house", Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 2007-01-17. Retrieved on January 17, 2007.