Inside the Stunning Revamp of the 51-Year-Old Pasadena Restaurant That Inspired Panda Express

After quietly closing in 2023 to refresh its interior and menu for the first time in 20 years, Pasadena’s legendary Panda Inn is finally gearing up to reopen on November 14, 2024. Husband and wife duo Andrew and Peggy Cherng, and Andrew’s father, chef Ming-Tsai Cherng, opened the original Panda Inn in Pasadena in 1973. About a decade later in 1982, the family expanded Panda Inn to Glendale before opening the first fast-casual Chinese restaurant Panda Express inside the Glendale Galleria mall in 1983. Today, there are four standalone Panda Inn restaurants in Southern California and over 2,300 Panda Express locations worldwide.

The Cherngs’ journey to opening in Pasadena began in Yangzhou, China, where Andrew and his parents were born. In 1953, the family relocated to Taipei, Taiwan, where Ming-Tsai worked at the Grand Hotel, before moving to Yokohama, Japan, in 1961 and cooking in the city’s Chinatown. Then, in 1972, Andrew moved to Los Angeles to help his cousin run a restaurant called Ting Ho before opening the first-ever Panda Inn a year later.

This version of Panda Inn will honor the journey the Cherngs took to Pasadena with a completely reimagined interior and revamped dishes. The space now features a sushi bar, a renovated outdoor patio, and a private dining area for large parties. The menu also features dishes from Yangzhou chefs, paying tribute to the city that started it all for the Cherng family. Andrew and Peggy’s daughter Andrea Cherng, the company’s chief brand officer, contributed to bringing this new vision of Panda Inn to life.

The dining room is almost unrecognizable from the one guests last saw in 2023. Gone are the brown-hued walls and red-painted arch, replaced by sleek wood paneling and booths tucked away in alcoves. Light from floor-to-ceiling windows reflects off the dark floors, and the ultra-long sushi bar with striking layered granite immediately captures attention from multiple vantage points. A circular engraved classical Chinese landscape scene and wooden lattice paneling recalls a regal banquet hall. Over the entrance, a towering black portico welcomes diners with a gilded “Panda Inn” sign, as if to mark a golden new era for the restaurant.

The new menu starts with a photo of the late chef Ming-Tsai standing over a fire wearing a white jacket. From there, its pages move into chef specials like shrimp and lobster wontons, Panda Beef in an orange peel sauce, chargrilled beef short ribs, honey walnut shrimp, and lobster crispy noodles. Soup and salad options consist of hot and sour soup, chicken corn egg drop soup, mango tea smoked duck salad, and spicy beef salad, while appetizers include favorites like crab wontons with cream cheese, a mu shu wrap, salt and pepper calamari, chicken lettuce cups, and Taiwanese popcorn chicken.

Larger main courses include familiar Chinese American classics like kung pao shrimp, orange chicken, beef and broccoli, and tea-smoked duck. The reinvention of the restaurant brings updated seafood, sushi, and raw bar dishes, like hamachi tacos, spicy tuna on crispy rice, and a miso butter lobster roll — takes on the high-end Japanese lounge food that restaurants like Nobu made famous. Meals can be rounded out with sides of bok choy and mushrooms, spicy tofu eggplant, lo mein, chow fun, or fried rice. If they have room, diners can order chocolate lava cake and warm rice pudding for dessert, or finish with a cup of jasmine, sencha, or oolong tea.

For Andrea, the shift is way to remember the hard work of her grandfather and parents: “Panda Inn, our family’s home for fifty-one years, is a tribute to the giants who came before us and to the countless immigrant families who have sacrificed for future generations.”

Panda Inn reopens at 3488 E. Foothill Boulevard, Pasadena, CA, 91107 on November 15 and will serve from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday to Friday, and 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Saturday.