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The black construction boards are down, the "chicken burgers fries" sign is up and the fryers are ready to go. At long last, San Francisco's most obsessed-over fast food chain opening is here: Jollibee will debut its newest outpost, which has been in the works for half a decade, at 934 Market St. on July 31.
The restaurant will be open from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. with dine-in and to-go, the company announced on Tuesday. The Filipino fast-food chain is known for its fried chicken, banana ketchup spaghetti, peach-mango pies and other fare. The opening date was first reported by the San Francisco Standard.
Jolilibee operates more than 1,600 locations worldwide and more than 80 in America. It opened its first U.S. outpost in Daly City, the Bay Area's Filipino hub, in 1998. There are now a dozen Jollibees in the Bay Area, with many more coming, though San Francisco has been without one for 15 years, when an outpost near Moscone Center closed.
The Market Street location has been in the works since 2020, winding its way through multiple city departments and state agencies for permits. The delays fueled fans' preoccupation with when it would actually open; any small indication, from an "opening soon" sign that was later taken down to, most recently, the removal of the boards that have been covering the windows for years, fomented speculation on social media and in news articles. Its location - across from the IKEA food hall Saluhall, which has been plagued by high turnover, and a block away from the now-dark San Francisco Centre mall - took on additional importance as the city has worked in recent years to revive the struggling downtown neighborhood.
Jollibee's most recent bureaucratic hurdle was equipment that the city deemed too noisy. Newly installed restaurant equipment must meet San Francisco's noise ordinance, and for months, the city said that four machines sitting on the restaurant's roof - a heat pump, a condenser fan for an ice maker, and a pair of condensers for a walk-in freezer and cooler - were not in compliance. After failing two noise tests earlier this year, Jollibee added "vibration isolation pads" under and a thick acoustic liner inside the heat pump, which also "underwent maintenance in order to run smoother than before," according to a third test conducted in late June. Finally, the city agreed that its equipment met appropriate noise levels. In early July, the building and health departments signed off, clearing Jollibee to open.
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