Jollibee offers a comforting stop—and destination—for Filipinos who travel.
Pulling open the double glass doors, walking across the gray, black, and white-tiled floor, approaching the red-accented “Order” sign at the fast food counter, I first notice the smell of fried chicken. I spend my time looking at the fast-food restaurant’s menu, seemingly debating what to order—but will inevitably opt for my childhood favorites: the fried chicken, spaghetti, and peach mango pie. Customers speak to the restaurant staff in Tagalog while families scurry to get their utensils, creating a scene that feels like I’m in Manila, Philippines. But glancing at the cars parked in the spacious parking lot from the store windows, I’m reminded that I’m halfway across the world in Alexandria, Virginia.
I was in Jollibee, a Filipino fast-food restaurant that has more than 1,500 stores spread across 17 countries, from Saudi Arabia to Spain. With 68 U.S. locations and 28 in Canada, the brand has been rapidly growing, with ambitious growth plans of reaching 500 stores in the next five to seven years in North America.
As the most popular fast-food chain in the Philippines, Jollibee is tied to many memories of Filipinos. Even I, an American-born Filipina who spent most of her life in the suburbs of North Carolina, grew up understanding people’s love for the brand. My family incorporated a stop at Jollibee when visiting family in Jacksonville, Florida. We’d often stock up with buckets of fried chicken to give to friends and family back in North Carolina—hours after it had gone cold.
I even heard that some Jollibee fans drive across states just to get a meal at the restaurant. This type of devotion always seemed a bit too over the top to me as a kid: In what world is a fast-food meal worth more than a ten-minute drive?
Over time, I embraced the draw of the restaurant. When I planned to watch Beetlejuice on Broadway with my sister last summer, we made sure to go to the Jollibee in Times Square afterward. A couple of years ago, I took one of those pilgrimages I had questioned when I was young and drove with friends to the Jollibee in Virginia Beach, Virginia, from North Carolina, forming precious memories along the way: the phone calls we all made to our families asking what they’d like us to bring them, taking pictures with the Jollibee mascot statue near the restaurant’s front doors. Visiting the restaurant was more than its food. It was an unapologetically Filipino experience I could share with friends and loved ones.
Like me, my friend Kyle Lorenzo (who has taken at least three trips from North Carolina to the Jollibee in Virginia Beach) says these hours-long journeys are less about the actual meal.
“I think it’s also emblematic of just how far and how extra Filipinos can be sometimes. Which cracks me up,” he says. “When Filipinos find something that represents them, even mildly, it’s a whole big thing and we gotta go full out on it. So I do think there’s something about the extreme lengths that some Filipinos will go—I think it says a lot about just how much pride there is in the community, but also just how over the top we can be in sort of the best kind of way.”
The makings of a beloved brand
Jollibee started in the Philippines as two Magnolia Dairy Ice Cream franchises that chemical engineering graduate Tony Tan Caktiong opened in 1975. After some input from customers, Caktiong added hot foods like burgers and hot dogs, soon making his stores so profitable that he converted them into the first Jollibee outlets in 1978. The brand created its anthropomorphic bee mascot—complete with a chef hat, large eyes, and wide smile—inspired by lovable Disney characters like Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. Its name was a symbol of the organization’s hardworking and cooperative nature, as well as its emphasis on happiness.
But it wasn’t all smooth sailing from here: In 1981, McDonald’s opened its first store in the country, directly competing with Jollibee. But rather than raise the white flag or become a franchisee, Caktiong decided to go head-to-head with the U.S. brand on its menu.
For the first-timer looking at Jollibee’s menu, there are plenty of menu items they can lean into for some sense of familiarity. There’s its original flagship product, the “Yumburger,” which comes with optional additions like pineapple rings, bacon, lettuce, and tomato. The brand also sells its own variety of fried chicken sandwiches and buckets of fried chicken known as Chickenjoy, which is similar to those of restaurants like Popeye’s and KFC but with its own set as spices.
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