Food is mediocre at best--nothing memorable, nothing terrible. The real issue is the service: painfully slow, with staff seemingly committed to doing one task at a time as slowly as possible. If you enjoy watching clothes migrate or paint dry, this is your kind of entertainment. Cleanliness is okay, but not enough to redeem the experience. Verdict: Avoid. Food is mediocre at best--nothing memorable, nothing terrible. The real issue is the service: painfully slow, with staff seemingly committed to doing one task at a time as slowly as possible. If you enjoy watching slothes migrate or paint dry, this is your kind of entertainment. Cleanliness is okay, but not enough to redeem the experience. Verdict: Avoid. read more

Panda Express - Fast Food Near Me - Helena, Montana

Food is fine. This restaurant is poorly ran and managed. They regularly have to actually stop taking orders. I just ate here and it took 63 minutes for the order to come. It just doesn't make any sense. Everyone is nice and the food is fine but this is a leadership / training issue. read more

STOP ACCEPTING ONLINE ORDERS IF YOU CANNOT FULFILL THE ORDERS ON TIME For the third time (I'd tried to give the restaurant the benefit of the doubt), I have waited at least a half hour over the estimated time for pickup. read more

The food is mediocre. Beware, it takes 40 minutes for them to get through 5 cars in the drive through. It's practically criminal to call this "fast food." 30 minutes will be spent waiting to even get to the order speaker. 5 minutes will be spent waiting for them to finally say "what can I get started for you?" 5 minutes will be spent waiting for them to come to the window. I come here for dinner on occasion because it is close to my workplace, but when my lunch is only an hour long and 40 minutes of it is spent waiting in a line, it's not even worth it. I have never written a yelp review before. I genuinely downloaded this app JUST to tell people how absurd the wait time here is. read more

I gave this place ANOTHER chance. They have seriously lost ALL SIGHT of seasoning their food. Every dish we got was bland as all hell. The Chow mein has become less & less noodles, & more & more useless lettuce with no nutritional value. Just filler. The fried rice has always been so bad that I can't even order it any more. Bland & undercooked, like they just rush through it. The mushroom chicken had no seasoning & sauce was watery. They have the nerve to call one of their sides "supergreens" when all I got was broccili. I will say that it did at least appear some what fresh. The thing that upsets me the most is their concept of uncharging for "premium" dishes. For a bowl that's already almost $9 (where the side is what $1 at the most? So the entree is $7 & change?) they have the NERVE to charge up to $1.50 extra for dishes they know people want. Yet it's not like they're giving you extra for the additional charge, & often times even SKIP on serving the full entree, or they do what they did during our LAST visit (which should have been the last time haha) & give you 3 pieces of meat & the rest filler. It's just SO maddening! AND the food's not even tasty! I totally understand from a business perspective that costs have gone up, they have to make a profit, etc but not if they're charging you extra but then skimping on the portion size. That's just called a SCAM! THEN they have a huge sign outside that they're hiring & market that they pay general managers up to $35 an hour. So that's where all that money from upcharges is going to! To pay incompetent leaders who often run their locations very poorly. Seriously, don't waste your money. You're not getting any value from it. Its literally throwing your money into the garbage. Stay away from this place at all COST! read more

Came in on Father's Day, a very busy day. They are VERY UNDERSTAFFED! Waited over 25 minutes in line and 40 minutes total to get our food! Shame on the manager for not properly staffing on Father's Day! read more

30 minutes to place an order then you cannot get your food (even though it's sitting there ready to go) because they're out of something for a person ahead of you and they cant check you out because someone is in front of you waiting till they cook more for them. Only 1 person can put food into containers. read more

Alyssa is amazing! Great customer service Food was hot and delicious. Recommend the honey walnut shrimp

Awesome, friendly staff. Quality food, made to the same standards as other Panda Express locations nationwide. I can definitely see why their drive thru takes so long, especially if they're waiting for a particular entree / side to finish cooking. They should inform customers of the wait when ordering and offer to park / bring their food to the car when it's ready to server other customers in the drive through a little quicker. I've never had a problem with too much cabbage (not lettuce by the way, it's cabbage) in my chow mein, if it looks like they're low on noodles I just offer to wait until their next chow mein is done. I've never had burnt or bland food in general, or any sort of "undercooked" rice. Customer service has always been top notch read more

was an at least 25 minute wait and my order was wrong. The last time i went my order was wrong as well

My wife ordered a takeout dinner for our family and the girls behind the counter refused to give me the order because there wasn't a door dash number! It wasn't ordered thru door dash, it was ordered as a takeout! I even had the name, and bank account it was ordered from! I'll never go back there again. The customer service was abhorrent and the place was filthy anyways! read more

Good food...BUT...The line at the Helena panda express is always ridiculous! Frequently we have tried to use the app to order ahead and it is not working. I called the store to ask why it wasn't working and they said they have the app turned off when there is lower volume. I'm not sure what lower volume means because the line outside is always 10 to 15 deep. The store manager needs to figure out how to resolve this because they are losing customers. UPDATE: I tried to post this review on Google, and was told that panda express is not excepting reviews. What is going on with this place? I took away an additional star because I couldn't leave a Google maps review. read more

Do you like your Broccoli over cooked, mushy and yellowish? Then check out the Panda express in Helena. When I asked for fresh veggies I was told that those were the fresh one and that was what they would serve. I made it very clear that I wanted and deserved fresh food. I walked out without eating there. Thankfully I did not go through drive through as I would have only discovered the bad Broccoli when I got home ---and would be been even more upset. Helena needs more Asian restaurants to provide variety and competition to the ones that we have. read more

Love the food. Lots of really good veggies along with the meat. The prices are very good. Two can easily eat for 13 or 14 dollars without drinks. The waits can be a bit long even with preorders on the app. They are usually pretty busy. read more

Not friendly to anyone who puts in a online order DO NOT ORDER FROM HERE I was told by staff that my order was ready multiple times at which point I had waited for almost 45 minutes to an hour. I am wasting my own time at my own gas by standing there while they are doing nothing when I finally confronted a manager, he told me that the order is not ready and will not be ready for another hour and a half, this place is not friendly to customers nor ANYONE IN THE SERVICE INDUSTRY DO NOT ORDER read more

Can't go inside. It's 7:45pm. Why do I have to download load an app, create an account and blah blah blah when I can see the food being cooked. read more

Panda Express - How can you only offer take out? - Fast Food Near Me - Helena, Montana

Both the service and food were amazing! Very fast and polite; not sure what the other reviews are complaining about...

The food is good nothing bad to say about that, I know going inside is usually faster at fast food places but I waited in line at the drive through for probably 15 minutes when around 6-7 cars pulled up went inside and got there food before i even got to order my food. They came out right as I was next in line to order or else I would have just went inside. I get that someone in the drive through could have ordered a bunch of food but come on 30 minutes in the drive through is ridiculous. read more

This was the 3rd time ordering and picking up and I have to say "This Place Has Awful Service"!! The dining room is open sometimes and not others, the place is ALWAYS unorganized and I've always been waiting for my food and have seen just unhappy customers! They claim your order is ready for pickup and it's not and this last time I had a pickup all doors were locked so I looked for number and had to call 2 times before they would pickup. I did not want to complain but after 3 attempts, I figured I had too! read more

Absolutely worst panda location I've ever been to. They aren't busy and it took 30 minutes for 2 bowls. They didn't put forks or teriyaki sauce in the bag either. Will never be back. read more

Horrible service. Kitchen fULL of people and with no one inside or in line that can't even be faster than 20 minutes to even GET to you before taking your order. Kitchen full of lazy teenagers who think everything's funny. Should be working like they have bills to pay. read more

Got the broccoli and beef to go and an egg roll. The to-go container was 90% fried rice and contained about 1/2 cup of the entree. The entree was dry with a tiny amount of sauce and about 6 small pieces of beef. The entire bowl had no flavor. The egg roll was extremely greasy which was not evident from the glass partition and tasted awful. Will never go back. read more

Worst food ever never again dont even have sweet and sour just terrible dont waste your money

This has been the worst experience so far with orange chicken being only breading and no evidence of meat. And the honey walnut shrimp was barely the size of salad shrimp, so the so so quality of the meal with 20% decrease in size with healthy jump in price makes it not worth stopping in ever again. Even the fortune cookies lacked fortunes, this type of cost cutting to profit is unfortunate. Would not recommend to anyone. read more

after waiting 20 minutes in line and still continuing to see that only one person was helping the inside well, three people were helping the drive-through and seeing it was gonna take another 10 minutes before I was going to be helped. I finally went up and asked if there was anyone else to work, and then was told that everyone was doing dishes, like that was an excuse. read more

Absolutely the worst Panda Express I have ever been to , very rude customer service . I would recommend never going to the Helena store . Very very bad bad service. read more

If there were negative stars I would give -5 stars. This place has sucked from the start, and couldn't even maintain that low standard. I've eaten there three times, because my kid likes it. No more. They screwed up the order again, leaving us short of what we ordered and paid for. It's probably good, since the food is loaded with sodium and preservatives. Go there if you want a side of indigestion with your frustration. read more

For the amount of money, portions are small and they over load you on rice or chow mein. Both have zero flavor. This place used to give you nice size portions. Now like all other places they're skimpy and the prices just keep going up. Quality had gone down. read more

Panda Express they need some work just ordered dinner me and my son you can tell they were rushed Beijing beef didn't have sauce on order well half did other not so much Kam Pow chicken was a under served small portion I know they know better lunch is good all the time I was Taught by MasterChef Chinese Chef I'm pretty good with her but their stuff is already cooked. All you gotta do is put sauce on it and throw it in a pan. Get your stuff together. Folks owner should be paying attention. What's going out the door and making sure people are happy with what's going on. Let's see if you can fix it. I'll go right back in here and give you a three or four star I won't give you a five star because you don't make anything fresh. read more

I have been giving this place numerous tries but I've had enough. This Panda is poorly managed and needs some serious training. I usually order the family meal and the last four times there has always been something missing on the menu. This particular time they were out of all appetizers, broccoli and chicken, and several other main entrees. We were told it would be a 15 min wait on orange chicken. They were out of Lo mein and the fried rice we got was just rice and egg, this was at 530pm on a Monday. This place constantly has stock issues and just poorly managed. When will someone step in to help? I've done those surgery's and they don't help at all. Please someone from corporate step in because the brand name is being ruined. read more

The food was great. Hot and fresh. Beijing beef is so good. Very fast service. The staff seemed happy and friendly. A full meal for $9.60 , that is the two entree plate. Plenty of food. It was clean inside, a good location right off freeway. I would definitely eat here again. read more

Wow no vegetarians allowed here your only choice is rice broccoli and cabbage and that's it!!! They have all the vegetables but they will not cook them for you???wtf??? It would be very simple to make a dish with cabbage carrots broccoli green beans red bell pepper onion snow peas mushrooms you know vegetables. but all these mindless automatons can manage is cabbage and broccoli with one little piece of kale floating around in it and they call it super greens what a joke. Panda Express is disgusting I am so disappointed it could be good but it's not. I understand we're in bass-ackwards hillbilly Hell ena Montana were you have to have 99% meat dishes but can we have just one real vegetarian dish?? read more

Panda Express - Cabbage and broccoli and they call that a vegetarian dish what a joke! - Fast Food Near Me - Helena, Montana

Only thing nice to say is it's the best Chinese food in town. Sorry, but that doesn't say much for Chinese restaurants in Helena...

Two thumbs up for service by the staff. We came with a larger group eight before close and they were super gracious and had the best attitudes despite being there a little after close. Thank you! read more

AN UPDATE It's been a while since I ate here and the experience was horrible (I gave them just one star). I was in this area again, hungry and had cravings for Chinese, so decided to give them a chance to rehabilitate. WOW, big change. I could not believe. They IMPROVED a lot. The Shanghai steak, tender and juicy, just delicious. Veggies looked and tasted fresh. Just out off the steamer. Pot stickers were perfect. Everything tasted like HOME COOKED and not a fast food at all. The portions were very GENEROUS. Customer service was exceptional. Even though it was a lunch time and there was a line (moved fast), it took a blink of an eye to order the meal and pay. I really enjoy it today. Thank you guys very much. The only reason I'm giving 4 stars is the previous experience (1 star) read more

Panda Express - Tasty and fresh. Generous size. I enjoyed it - Fast Food Near Me - Helena, Montana

Wow! First time in many visits that I ordered Broccoli and Beef and got NO beef! Maybe one tiny sliver. The broccoli looked like it should've gone to the trash instead of in my bowl. Very disappointed. Sadly I had no time to go inside and complain as I was going to an appointment. read more

Panda Express - Broccoli Beef and Brown Rice..supposedly. - Fast Food Near Me - Helena, Montana

Hour after pickup time and still no food. Order is complete on app but no food. Would suggest going to Winco next door and cooking for yourself. Probably will be faster. Listening to others here someone from door dash has been here hour and half. read more

Panda is good for quick Chinese but I can't recommend the Helena location. They are always out of EVERYTHING. I got there about 11:30 today and they were already out of broccoli beef and...get this...it was going to be 40 mins before they had ANY rice. What??? read more

I travel a lot and have had Panda Express in many different cities. I always have the same thing - Kung Pao Chicken. This is the first time the chicken was served breaded & fried and sweeter than normal. Or maybe it always had a little bit of flour on them, but this was really bready. Are the recipes varied for different locations? I wish they were held consistent. This version was extra oily and sweet, which was disappointing. I'd give it two stars, but the guy at the cash register was really friendly so I'm adding a star for him. read more

Stopped here for dinner and it was pretty busy with sports teams. It seems new. Food stations were ample, service and dining area setup were ok. They could be a bit quicker on the cleanup but it was pretty busy. Parking area is ok. read more

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