Jollibee North America

Jollibee North America operates the United States and Canada platform for Jollibee, the Filipino quick-service restaurant brand known for fried chicken, burgers, and sweet-style spaghetti. The business centers on a mix of company-operated and franchised restaurants that serve Jollibee’s signature items, including Chickenjoy, Jolly Spaghetti, and Peach Mango Pie, in busy trade areas where families and destination dining perform well. As of January 2024, Jollibee has reached 100 restaurants across North America, with locations in and around Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, New York City, Chicago, Houston, Dallas–Fort Worth, Las Vegas, Seattle, Vancouver, Winnipeg, Toronto, and Calgary.

The brand’s story begins in the Philippines in the mid-1970s, when founder Tony Tan Caktiong opened a small ice cream shop in Quezon City. By 1978, the concept had shifted from desserts to hot meals, and Jollibee Foods Corporation was formally established as a fast-food business. Jollibee entered North America in 1988 with its first U.S. location in Daly City, California, in a community with a large Filipino population. The restaurant quickly drew long lines and proved that the concept could travel outside its home country. The first Canadian restaurant opened in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in 2016, and at that point Jollibee counted 35 locations across North America.

Jollibee North America is part of Jollibee Foods Corporation, a global restaurant group based in the Philippines that controls multiple brands and more than 9,000 outlets worldwide. Within that global system, North America has become a priority expansion region. Over roughly the last five years, Jollibee has shifted from a niche, diaspora-focused presence to a more visible player in major urban and suburban markets, investing in flagship locations and a broader real estate mix to reach both Filipino guests and new mainstream customers.

Recent activity underscores how the platform has scaled and evolved. In January 2024, Jollibee opened its 100th North American location in Surrey, British Columbia, marking a key milestone for the region. The company has added a high-profile flagship in New York’s Times Square and continues to open new restaurants in Chicago, Houston, Dallas–Fort Worth, Los Angeles, and the Bay Area. The current development pipeline includes new freestanding drive-thru units along with high-visibility inline and end-cap locations in major metros and fast-growing secondary markets across the United States and Canada.

For landlords, brokers, and developers, Jollibee brings the backing of a large, publicly recognized international restaurant group and a track record of generating strong destination traffic, often drawing loyal customers who will travel for store openings. The brand is actively expanding, targets a range of urban and suburban formats, and is focused on securing prominent, high-traffic sites in core gateway cities as well as in high-growth Sunbelt and gateway-adjacent markets such as New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Houston, Dallas, Vancouver, Toronto, and Calgary. This combination of global scale, clear growth posture, and flexible store formats positions Jollibee North America as a meaningful demand driver for quality retail and restaurant space across the region.