American entrepreneur Andrew Cherng is best known as the co-founder and chief executive officer of Panda Express. He was born in Jiangsu, China who came to the United States in 1996 via Taiwan with very little money. He and his father, Ming Tsai Cherng who was trained as a master chef in Japan, started a sit down Chinese fast-food restaurant called Panda Inn in 1973. It was located in Pasadena, California and was built using family funds and a Small Business Administration loan.

Ten years after, Cherng started Panda Express, a fast casual restaurant in the second largest mall in Los Angeles, the Glendale Galleria mall. The mall developer encouraged him to start the business at the food court after he had eaten at the Panda Inn. By 1993, it had expanded to 100 restaurants with the opening of the UCLA outlet. The restaurant chain became one of the biggest Chinese-American family-owned fast-food chains in the U.S.