Every day, I yearn for the Market Street Jollibee to finally open. I’m not alone. Just about everyone who works downtown (and certainly, the San Francisco press corps) is excited for this Filipino fast food joint to start selling Chickenjoy and party food to the masses! I cannot wait to stand in line for hours on opening day — sorry in advance to my bosses — to chow down on a two-piece leg and thigh combo with Jolly spaghetti and a peach mango pie, maybe with a pineapple cooler on the side.
I just have no idea when that day will come and it’s driving me crazy.
(Extremely relevant journalistic disclosures: I am not an unbiased reporter on this, the most important lunch beat in San Francisco. I am a proud Filipino-American; I waited for at least an hour in line when the first Jollibee in Manhattan opened in 2018, back when I lived in New York; my desk is adorned with a golfing Jollibee kids’ toy; I had my second birthday party at a Jollibee; I can eat my weight in FIlipino spaghetti; etc.)
In June, The San Francisco Business Times suggested that the Jollibee would finally open by the end of August. As you may know, August came and went without a grand opening. We’re now almost halfway into September. I’m surprised that my fellow San Franciscans aren’t outside the former Payless store camping out like Dead Heads. Sad!
Yesterday, during one of my weekly pilgrimages to the site of my future lunches, I noticed the biggest development on the Jollibee opening in months, the kind of thing that should warrant a New York Times article about the state of San Francisco or what have you. There is now a door on the storefront’s barren black plywood walls! Not only that, but someone hastily spray-painted the street number above these doors!
This is not a drill, people.
These doors — these glorious, presumably openable doors — are the most solid sign of life we have that the Jollibee will open in San Francisco and that the location has not been abandoned despite the surrounding stretch of Market Street being arguably one of the more distressed parts of downtown. Jollibee is so close, I can almost taste it.
Before you drop what you’re doing and head there now, let me be clear: There is no official word on opening. The patient Jollibee spokesperson I’ve been hounding for months kindly confirmed that there is no official opening date yet. (At this point, we are at my probably tenth ask; thank you and I’m sorry to this person.) But you can trust and believe that, as I have been every week for the past month or so, I will continue to scope out the Jollibee for any significant breaking developments. You can guaran-bee it.
Welcome to Jollibee Watch.
