Panda Express Planning OC Growth
By JENNIFER BELLANTONIO
Panda Restaurant Group Inc. is reloading in the Asian eatery turf war.
The Rosemead-based chain plans to open up to 16 Panda Express restaurants in Orange County in the next three years as part of a broader expansion.
The chain now has 26 restaurants in OC.
Robert Kluger, Panda’s regional real estate manager, knows he’s up against some fierce competition.
“We all compete for a share of stomachs,” Kluger said. “But we don’t look at it as a bad thing.”
Panda Express, which opened its first OC restaurant in Westminster in the 1980s, has been scouting undisclosed spots in newly renovated malls in central Orange County, including Anaheim, Garden Grove and Buena Park, Kluger said. He said the company is working on leases.
This year, Panda Express plans to open three to four restaurants in OC, followed by as many as six in 2005 and ’06 (one may be a drive-through).
Other local fast-food competitors include Laguna Hills-based Del Taco Inc. and Irvine-based Taco Bell Corp. Plus, Panda faces off with restaurants in the “fast casual” segment, where food is ordered and paid for at the counter, then cooked fresh and served to guests who eat in or take it away.
Among them: smaller rival San Clemente-based Pick Up Stix, which also offers Asian food, Santa Ana-based Wahoo’s Fish Taco and Wendy’s International Inc.’s Baja Fresh Mexican Grill of Thousand Oaks.
The three also have been expanding in OC.
Tim Pulido, president and chief operating officer of Pick Up Stix, said the company is readying for the new competition. Pick Up Stix counts 25 OC restaurants. The chain, part of Dallas-based Carlson Restaurants Worldwide Inc., has about 92 restaurants overall and plans to open 25 this year.
“There’s a number of new emerging concepts around that are going after (the market for Asian food),” Pulido said. “Competition is a good thing. Customers have more choices and ideally it makes other competitors work harder.”
Average sales per restaurant for the Panda Express chain are about $919,000, slightly less then Pick Up Stix’s $1.1 million average, according to Chicago-based restaurant consultant and market tracker Technomic Inc.
“We think (OC) is pretty wide open,” Kluger said. “Based on the number of people in Orange County, we could probably land somewhere between 60 and 70 stores.”
Panda Express’ 600th restaurant opened in December in Irvine. The company, which recently tripled the size of its headquarters and moved to Rosemead from South Pasadena, plans to open 160 restaurants this year.
Technomic said Panda posted sales of $400 million in 2002,the most recent numbers available,versus $67 million for Pick Up Stix and $50 million for Boulder, Colo.-based Noodles & Co., another competitor.
Panda Express, Pick Up Stix and others are counting on the rising popularity of Asian food to spur growth.
Joe Pawlak, senior principal at Technomic, told the Business Journal in a past interview that the Asian food portion of the “fast casual” segment is “not very developed at this point” and has room to “explode.”
