Panda Express opens new location in Wasilla

WASILLA — On the first day the new Panda Express opened this month in Wasilla, the line for drive-through service stretched around the building, through the parking lot and all the way back to the adjacent Fred Meyer.

On the second day, the lunch rush kept the new restaurant’s 30 employees — some from Hawaii and Guam — hopping, which in turn, kept regional director for operations John Zhang smiling. The Wasilla branch was the second to open in the state, following Anchorage last week.

“Very busy,” Zhang said. “This one has been even busier than Anchorage.”

For now, company officials haven’t planned a separate grand opening for the Wasilla location, though they’re thinking about it, Zhang said. An event in Anchorage raised about $8,000 apiece for Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Alaska and Bartlett High School.

All-American

The restaurant’s motif and menu may be Chinese — or at least Chinese-inspired — but the company story is as American (the website describes the food as American Chinese cuisine) as the fortune cookie. The brand founded by Andrew and Peggy Cherng is long familiar as a fixture in shopping mall food courts across the United States. The first Panda Express opened at the Glendale Galleria mall in Glendale, California. The company started expanding into standalone locations in 1997. Global expansion began in 2011, including possible expansion into China itself, according to National Public Radio.

“We normally started from the mall, since we had customers there,” Zhang said. “But right now, since we have the brand name, which is cool on the street. People know us. Free-standing drive-thru’s make it convenient for customers.”

Unlike a mall kiosk, the company also purchased the land and built the building at the Wasilla location itself, Zhang said.

Open for business

Jokes about Chinese food and Christmas in America are as old as the hills (A Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan joke during a 2010 confirmation hearing and the movie “A Christmas Story” are two examples) but the restaurant’s opening date proximity to the holidays in this case is mere coincidence, Zhang said.

“We try to open as soon as possible because one, the customers want to eat the food, and second, you want to make sales,” he said.

Nor does the drive-through mean Panda Express aims to become fast food, Zhang said.

“We are more than the McDonald’s of Chinese food,” he said. “You can see the value. We have shrimp. We have steak. We’re not really fast food.”

The company looked into expansion to the Wasilla location starting in 2014, and based the move in part on the demographics and the presence of Fred Meyer to serve as an anchor, Zhang said. He said sales at the Anchorage set set a company record for the first week. So far, the orange chicken was selling well in Wasilla.

The thing that struck Zhang the most was his customers.

“I really like the customers here,” he said. “They are friendly. They are patient to wait, and they have very good manners, like: they clean their own tables.”

Panda Express operates 1,800 locations around the world.

Contact reporter Brian O’Connor at 352-2270, brian.oconnor@frontiersman.com, or on Twitter @reporterbriano.