Panda Express built an empire out of a single family’s restaurant. Now its founders are focused on helping their employees build something of their own.
Privately held and employing around 55,000 people, the Chinese food chain generates roughly $7 billion in annual sales and has grown into America’s largest Asian restaurant brand, with more than 2,500 locations across 49 states and a presence in 12 countries.
Behind that growth are two cofounders whose own paths to the U.S. weren’t so different from the immigrant employees they’re now trying to help. Andrew Cherng was born in China and raised in Taiwan and Japan before immigrating to the U.S. in 1966. Peggy Cherng was born in Myanmar and grew up in Hong Kong.
The two met at the University of Missouri and went on to become co-CEOs together, opening their first Panda Express in Glendale, California, in 1983. The restaurant initially launched as a more relaxed, faster-paced version of Panda Inn—the full-service Chinese restaurant Andrew started with his father roughly a decade earlier.
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Andrew told Inc. that the company’s mission has always extended beyond building a successful restaurant chain.
“Building Panda Restaurant Group for the past 50 years has been our American dream come true, and we are deeply committed to helping our associates achieve their own,” he said. “Homeownership is a major milestone for many of our team members, so we proactively equip them with the tools to reach it.”
Yet, over the past decade, that American dream of homeownership has slipped out of reach for millions of middle-class families. According to Gallup, U.S. homeownership has averaged just 61% since 2012, down from 70% between 2001 and 2011.
The pipeline of new buyers has thinned out even further, with the National Association of Realtors finding that first-time buyers made up just 21% of all homebuyers this year, the lowest share since the group began tracking the data in 1981.
That gap is even wider for immigrants. Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies reported foreign-born households had an average homeownership rate of just 56% in 2021, well below the native-born rate. That figure also varies widely by country of origin, ranging from a high of 73% among Vietnamese households down to just 29% among households from the Dominican Republic.
Despite the many obstacles standing between first-time buyers and homeownership, Andrew wants his Panda Express employees to focus on what’s possible rather than what’s holding them back.
To that end, Panda Express employees can access financial wellness benefits through the company’s Total Rewards Package, including optional training on budgeting, saving for a down payment, and homebuying seminars led by Panda’s in-house real estate legal team, part of a broader support system that also covers healthcare and higher education.
“This whole-person approach ensures associates can build sustainable careers and long-term financial security,” Andrew said.
That effort appears to be paying off: 63% of Panda Express managers are homeowners, with a median age of 34, above the national homeownership rate of roughly 35% for U.S. adults younger than 35.
“When you align closely with team members to help them reach their individual goals, strong retention follows,” Peggy told Inc.
At a moment when companies are cutting benefits, Panda Express’s bet on homeownership stands out. It may become a harder one for competitors to ignore.
—By Amaya Nichole, News Writer
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This article originally appeared on Fast Company’s sister website, Inc.com.
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