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TheBuzz
Erika Engle
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Drive-through Chinese food is coming to Moanalua
THE FIRST Panda Express drive-through operation in Hawaii will debut tomorrow with the opening of the chain's new Moanalua Shopping Center location.
It will be the first of at least three Hawaii Panda Express locations with drive-through windows, said John Zhang, area coach of operations. (Yes, that's really his title. It is comparable to area manager, he said.)
It is impossible to describe what a relief it is to report such drive-though restaurant news, your columnist having long believed this was a perfect concept for any place where food is already available for the dishing from steam tables.
If the old Jolly Roger on Dillingham Boulevard was able to do plate lunches from a drive-through window, so can lots of other quick-service restaurant concepts. Jolly Roger closed years ago and sat vacant for more years until it was razed and replaced with an auto parts store.
"We have lots of drive-throughs in our company," Zhang said, but they are mostly in California. The California-based Panda Restaurant Group Inc. has some 875 restaurants in 36 states. Eight hundred forty-five of them are Panda Express locations, 25 of them are Hibachi-san locations and five of them are Panda Inn locations.
Most locations are company-owned, but there are some licensees operating some stores.
The Moanalua location will be No. 12 for Hawaii as Panda surges forward with an aggressive expansion. It plans to have more than 40 locations open in Hawaii in the next five years, said Zhang, who oversees the company's restaurants in Hawaii.
Panda Express' new Kauai Village location in Kapaa is "very successful," he said.
The Big Island is to get its first Panda Express, with a drive-through window, near the Home Depot in Hilo in January. Another Panda Express with drive-through will open near the Maui Wal-Mart in Kahului in March. Also that month, Panda will open near the Pearl City Wal-Mart, though that will not have a drive-through operation.
Next year, Panda Express will celebrate 20 years of doing business in Hawaii. "It will be a big celebration ... and we are planning a lot of activities," Zhang said.
Its first location opened Jan. 23, 1987, at Ala Moana Center's Makai Market food court.
Orleans Express, a Cajun food concept next to Panda Express at the Makai Market, was another of the Panda Restaurant Group's concepts. It was a test of a new Panda group concept, but it will not be continued or expanded, Zhang said.
Orleans Express will be replaced by Hawaii's first Hibachi-san restaurant next month. As the name implies, many of the Panda-owned quick-service restaurant's offerings are grilled. The menu has many chicken dishes but also offers some beef, shrimp and crab dishes as well as sushi and udon.
Panda Restaurant Group was founded by Andrew Cherng, who hails from the Yangzhou region of China. His father was a master chef named Ming-Tsai Cherng. However, there is no connection between the Panda Restaurant Group Cherngs and celebrity chef-restaurateur, cooking show host and cookbook author Ming Tsai, Zhang said.
Erika Engle is a reporter with the Star-Bulletin. Call 529-4747, fax 529-4750 or write to Erika Engle, Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., No. 7-210, Honolulu, HI 96813. She can also be reached at:
eengle@starbulletin.com