When Is San Francisco Getting Jollibee?
There’s only one thing I love more than fried chicken: Filipino Fried Chicken, and luckily there’s about to be a lot more Filipino Fried Chicken in the Bay because Jollibee is coming to Alameda. Which is great. Alameda deserves delicious fried chicken, but one city remains free of Jollibee’s chickenjoy, and that’s San Francisco.
Why?
According to the San Francisco Standard, a Downtown San Francisco Jollibee has been in the works since 2020, but the site at 5th and Market remains chickenless. It wasn’t always this way, but there used to be a Jollibee in SoMa.
This is unacceptable. According to scientists, the only way to properly defeat a ‘doom loop’ is with a sufficient amount of chickenjoy. This is the only way forward for the city. Without Jollibee, San Francisco is doomed.
I’m kidding, but one of the things I miss about living in Vallejo, a city with a large Filipino population, was being introduced to Filipino food. The food of the Philippines is an underrated blessing that more people should experience. And I’m not only referring to Jollibee, but to Filipino street food.
One of the great things about Vallejo was you’d have grandmothers selling lumpia out of their garages. Their kids would post on local Vallejo community pages that they were selling food, and people would come from every corner of town until the lumpia was sold out.
San Francisco is a city with a storied Fil-Am community, but the city’s culinary scene is lacking strong Filipino representation. While Chinese and Mexican food are synonymous with San Francisco, several other communities have called the CIty home, but you wouldn’t be able to tell.
For example, SoMa used to be home to a thriving Filipino community, but due to gentrification and urban renewal efforts, those communities have all but been erased. Now SoMa is home to high rise condos and the types of businesses to cater to people who live in high rise condos. The only problem is that a lot of those condos are empty, so those businesses are also empty.
I would much rather walk around Little Manilla than a faux-urban ghost town.
While obviously we can’t just wave a magic wand and bring back SoMa’s Filipino community, we can diversify the City’s fast food.
San Francisco is a world-class food city with lots of options, but honestly, there are very few options that smack as hard as Jollibees. Here’s to hoping the city has some delicious Chicken joy in its future.
SUBSCRIBE TO MY SUBSTACK HERE
FOLLOW MY WRITING ON INSTAGRAM HERE
FOLLOW BAY AREA MEMES ON FACEBOOK HERE
FOLLOW BAY AREA MEMES ON INSTAGRAM HERE
PURCHASE MY BOOK HERE
Howdy! My name is Katy Atchison and I'm an Associate Editor for Broke-Ass Stuart.
I want to take the time to say thank you for supporting independent news media by reading BrokeAssstuart.com. Supporting independent news sources like Broke-Ass Stuart is vital to supporting our community because it amplifies the voices of a wide variety of diverse opinions. You also help support small businesses and local artists by sharing stories from Broke-Ass Stuart.
Because you're one of our supporters, I wanted to send over a pro-tip.
Our bi-weekly newsletter is a great way to get round ups of Broke-Ass Stuart stories, learn about new businesses in The Bay Area, find out about fun local events and be first in line for giveaways.
If you’d like to get our newsletter, signup right here, it takes 5 seconds.
You Might Also Like
