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In 2010, Carlson Restaurants Worldwide sold the company to Lorne Goldberg's Mandarin Holdings. Zhang remained as president and CEO of the company until his retirement in 2003. The company is headquartered in Laguna Hills, California, and owns and operates its own food-processing facility. In July 2001, the company was acquired by Carlson Restaurants Worldwide, a unit of the Carlson Companies. Two years later, the chain expanded into San Diego County with locations in Del Mar, Carlsbad and San Diego.
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By 1992, there were two more locations in Orange County, in Irvine and Laguna Niguel. He opened the first restaurant in Rancho Santa Margarita, California, in 1989. He took traditional Asian food and adapted it to the American palate by reducing the amount of oil and adding wine, vinegar and soy sauce. Pick Up Stix was created by a Chinese immigrant, Charlie Zhang, who moved to the United States in 1982 with only $20 in his pocket. In a readers' poll in the June 2008 issue of San Diego Magazine, Pick Up Stix was named one of the three "Best Takeout" restaurants in San Diego. Īll of the company's food is cooked-to-order over high-heat burners using traditional woks. It is owned by Lorne Goldberg's Mandarin Holdings, the parent company of Leeann Chin, who bought the company from Carlson Companies in 2010. It also supplies meals to private schools as part of a school lunch program. The company serves both dine-in and take-out customers, and offers offsite catering and some delivery services. Pick Up Stix is an American fast-casual restaurant chain based in Laguna Hills, California, that serves fresh Asian cuisine (or Chinese-American cuisine as well) through corporate-owned restaurants and franchises in Southern California.
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