Panda Express’s founders built a $7 billion empire. Now they’re helping 55,000 employees become homeowners

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. Subscribe to Inc. This Morning, Inc.’s free daily newsletter, to get the top stories of the day in your inbox. Andrew told Inc. that the company’s mis…