There's a Chinese adage that says, "Food is the first necessity of the people."
Anyone exhausted after a long day knows it's true, and sometimes, some broccoli beef from
Panda Express just hits the spot.
Here's everything you should know before the next time you go.
Once upon a time in Kansas, two Baker University students met and they fell madly in love.
Born of this love was some of the yummiest Chinese food you'll ever eat, and we all lived
happily ever after stuffing our faces with broccoli beef and orange chicken.
It sounds like a fairy tale, but it's absolutely true.
Panda Express is a true American success story, as co-CEOs Andrew and Peggy Cherng both came
to America as immigrants in the mid-1960s.
Even though Andrew got his degree in mathematics and Peggy got hers in electrical engineering,
they ended up in the restaurant business.
It all started in 1973, when Andrew and his father opened the Panda Inn in Pasadena, running
it together with the entire family on staff.
Fast forward more than four decades, and the Cherng family has more than 2,000 Panda Express
restaurants in North America, as well as locations in Japan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Guatemala,
and Aruba.
And just because Panda Express is a mega-success doesn't mean the Cherngs have forgotten their
roots.
Their daughter Andrea is the company's chief marketing officer, and they own and operate
every restaurant they don't franchise them out to others, save for a few select locations.
At Panda Express, it truly is a family business.
Panda Express co-founder Peggy Cherng holds degrees in applied mathematics, computer science,
and electrical engineering, so when the restaurants first opened she was instrumental in implementing
a system of portable computers to process orders in every location.
Of course, most restaurants you frequent today have computerized systems for taking orders
and managing data, but Panda Express was one of the first restaurants to do so.
While her husband was busy adding locations to their growing empire, Peggy Cherng was
developing ways to keep track of everything from how well things were selling to streamlining
the ordering process.
Around 1983, she introduced the idea of the point of sale system.
She told the Los Angeles Times,
"I think we were one of the first to use POS.
It was confusing at the beginning, especially when everyone got nervous and pressed the
wrong buttons.
But it made everything more efficient."
All that number-crunching gave Panda Express a huge edge, particularly because it allowed
them to figure out pretty precisely just how much of each ingredient they needed to order,
which minimized spoilage while still helping guarantee a fresh product.
It also set a precedent for other restaurants to follow and today, Peggy Cherng is one of
the richest, self-made, foreign-born businesswomen in America.
One of the criticisms you'll see lobbied against Panda Express is the question of its authenticity.
Is it Chinese food?
Is it American food?
"Something stereotypical so I can get it quick….”
Okay I like your food.”
"Outback Steakhouse!
I'm Australian, mate!"
Technically, it's both.
It was founded by Chinese immigrants who adapted Chinese food for the American palate, and
for a lot of Americans, it's been their first introduction to Chinese cuisine.
Chief marketing officer Andrea Cherng put it this way:
"In the beginning, everything was already being translated by master chef Ming-Tsai
Cherng.
And the way that he cooked always had that Chinese heritage."
Panda Express's culinary director Jimmy Wang told Restaurant Drive,
"American Chinese cuisine is very authentic to Panda Express.
Our ever-evolving style of food was born from adapting traditional Chinese recipes, flavors
and cooking techniques to American ingredients and tastes."
And at the very heart of the matter is something that's about as authentic as you can get.
It's an authentic story, and as Andrea Cherng told Business Insider, Panda Express is
"...a story of immigrant Chinese chefs and families coming to the US, for what they hope
will be a better life.
It's a story of taking the recipes and the repertoire of their own culinary skill set
and making it appeal to an [American] national palate."
“if there’s an opportunity to more, to gain more, to get more I was up to it.”
Any Panda Express fanatic knows how good the chain's orange chicken is, and it should be
it's been on the menu since 1987.
When it was first introduced by former executive chef Andy Kao, though, it was served bone-in,
rather than the classic boneless dish you find at any Panda Express today.
And you will find a lot of it, because the chain sells millions of pounds each year.
The dish turned 30 years old in 2017, and that year, they sold a whopping 80 million
pounds of the stuff.
It's so popular that more than 50 percent of Panda Express diners select orange chicken
as part of their meal.
“There’s nothing tastier than Panda Express Orange Chicken!”
Panda Express orange chicken is everything delicious in one tasty meal boneless fried
chicken tossed in a sauce that's just a little bit spicy due to the dried chilis, but sweet
thanks to orange peel, honey, and ginger.
The orange chicken recipe has remained pretty consistent over the years, except a tweak
that was made by adding bacon that left many fans pretty upset.
They also offered orange chicken and waffles on their food truck to celebrate the famous
dish.
That sounds like a meal out of an orange chicken dream.
Panda Express hands out 282 million fortune cookies every year, and that works out to
around a million dollars' worth every month.
But they aren't always just your standard fortune cookies.
“You’re going to be eaten by a big greasy monster.
Have a nice day.”
No, it’s not that either… quite the opposite...
For a 2016 campaign, the restaurant renamed the classic treat Fortunate Cookies and included
FortuNotes inside, white slips that expressed gratitude and kindness, rather than the typical
proverb or prophecy.
Andrea Cherng told Fox News,
"The goal is that [customers] will pause and stop and acknowledge the people in their lives
that they feel most fortunate for.
[...] The habit of pausing and saying to someone that you matter that's the richness, that's
the fortune of life."
Some of the fortunes read, "You will help someone in need this week," "Your kind attitude
will keep others afloat," and "You are exactly where you're supposed to be."
To the restaurant's guests, those nice messages probably made those cookies taste all the
sweeter.
For the first time in the chain's history, Panda Express added vegan items to its menu
in 2019.
The new plant-based items include spring rolls, eggplant tofu, chow mein, and Super Greens
mixed veggies.
Until this menu change, Panda Express flavored its dishes with chicken broth and other animal
product seasonings.
According to PETA, this change is thanks to their supporters.
They claimed:
"When Panda Express told PETA that its vegetable-based dishes were still prepared with meat-based
flavoring, we urged the company to get with the times and offer vegan options in its 2,000
stores across the globe.
When it continued to give us excuses, we sent out an alert, and our supporters wrote the
company over 234,000 times demanding change."
But one issue that strict vegans may have with these new dishes is that although they
don't contain meat or animal by-products, Panda Express notes that they are still prepared
in the same kitchen as the meat items, using the same space and cooking equipment.
Some vegetarians discussing the cross-contamination issue on Reddit have a problem with the idea
of their food being cooked in the same pans that have prepared meat, while others don't.
Nonetheless, the company has been transparent about the issue, so that diners can make up
their own mind based on their dietary preferences and any allergies they may have.
If a restaurant is worried about competition in the food court at a shopping mall, they
could always do what the Cherngs did: start their own competing restaurant.
According to Fortune, Andrew Cherng said,
"We started Hibachi-San in malls in 1992 as a defensive strategy to keep Japanese restaurants
from selling against our Chinese food at Panda Express."
Hibachi-San is a Japanese fast casual restaurant, and with the growing popularity of both Japanese
cuisine and fast casual dining, it just makes sense.
Especially for the Cherngs, who knew that starting their own Japanese chain would mean
that whether a customer was deciding between Panda Express or Hibachi-San, they'd always
win.
Think you have an obsession with Panda Express orange chicken?
"I want to go to there."
In 2017, The Killers' were chowing down on a meal from Panda Express and found the phrase
"Smile Like You Mean It," in a fortune cookie which happened to also be the name of a song
from their 2004 album Hot Fuzz.
How did the band react to this?
By jokingly putting Panda Express on blast by tweeting,
"I'm thinkin' orange chicken for life and we'll let you off the hook for using our stuff."
The band's claim to inventing the phrase seems a bit iffy considering any third grader posing
for school picture day probably heard the same words uttered by the photographer, but
you can't fault The Killers for wanting to be swimming in that yummy, sticky orange chicken.
The stunt worked out for the best in the end, with Panda Express ultimately making a financial
donation to a charity of the band's choice.
Founder of Panda Express Andrew Cherng told Los Angeles Magazine that his job is to develop
people.
"When you have a good set of people, and they're in a good place inside and out in their livelihood
and in who they are then chances are they will take care of the customer better".
Employees at Panda Express receive health care, paid time off, 401(k)s, and company-subsidized
continuing education.
They also receive discounts to theme parks and gym memberships, among other perks.
The Cherngs even purchased a Robert Indiana sculpture that sits outside their corporate
headquarters and embodies the driving force behind all they do, in one simple word: "love."
Peggy Cherng told The New York Times,
"We are building a culture on trust, and the aim of trust is love.
Love is the verb we emphasize with our Panda family.
We must respect and care for each other.
We must push and stretch each other."
It's that type of corporate statement that makes it seem like being part of the Panda
family makes it a very nice place to work and, ultimately, a nice place to visit.
And that's the end goal.
Peggy Cherng told Los Angeles Magazine,
"The restaurant business is the people business, and people are our investment.
If we want to be loved by guests, we have to focus on food with passion and service
with heart, ambience, and pride."
And they do invest in their employees, like Daniel Pelagio.
They hired him when he was just 18, having recently settled in Santa Ana after moving
from Mexico.
Pelagio with the Cherng's help went from speaking no English to working his way through classes
and schooling to become the regional director for the chain's northwest-south region.
The most profitable Panda Express is located at the Ala Moana Center food court in Honolulu,
Hawaii and it brings in about $4 million a year, more than any other Panda Express restaurant.
That's a whole lot of orange chicken!
But it's not just shopping malls where you can find Panda Express they also have locations
as stand-alone restaurants, as well as in airports, at universities, theme parks, casinos,
and military bases.
With new restaurants opening worldwide, it's safe to say that the Cherngs have come a long
way since opening their first location.
According to Los Angeles Magazine, Andrew recalled once telling his mother that he had
plans to open 99 more restaurants.
His mother said she remembered being flabbergasted, telling him,
"You only eat three meals a day.
What do you need 100 restaurants for?
He was a good child who usually did listen, but in that instance he didn't."
Thank goodness he followed his dreams so all of us can enjoy orange chicken and broccoli
beef all over the world.
Check out one of our newest videos right here!
Plus, even more Mashed videos about your favorite restaurants are coming soon.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel and hit the bell so you don't miss a single one.