Popeye's Opens at SM City Manila!

The ribbon has been cut, the confetti has been dropped, and the crowd are still lined up at the newly opened Popeye’s Louisiana Kitchen which is popular for its Chicken and Biscuits. This has been the second store to open in the last six months and more branches are set to serve before end of 2019. The opening for Popeye’s in SM City Manila had a lot of pageantry and invited Filipino Celebrities for this occasion. The huge crowd that have been attracted to the local personalities trooped to one of SM Malls’ smallest shopping centre just to see the stars and get the taste of that Louisiana inspired Fried Chicken.

For the uninitiated Popeye’s has been in the Philippines before in the late 1990s to early 2000s, but popularity dwindled its branches due to stiff competition with restaurants that served crispy-licious Friend Chickens.

Now the owners of Kuya J’s (a popular Filipino Restaurant) had acquired a franchise to bring back the beloved restaurant that was announced late in 2018 that has been serving their trademark dishes from Louisiana since 1972.









To those who have heard about this restaurant and has dined-in before hopefully the confusion of the stores name after the fictional detective Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle in the movie The French Connection and not the comic strip and cartoon character Popeye the Sailor. For someone who has tried Popeye’s at the last restaurant in Greenhills in the early 2000s and going back to Manila from Korea in 2011 most of menu focuses on the trademark Chicken and Biscuits. But eagle eye visitors witness the localized menu is presented focused on a slew of Chicken with Rice Meals.

There’s no salad in their menu for the healthy eater or even an expanded line of sandwiches that they are trying to appeal to the locals that other restaurants already have with the same set that you'll see. But since this is just the second store in the country let’s hope they expanded on the quality of the food not just appeal to a lower class with the same cheap menu concept that other competitors already have made part of their identity.







The competition here is no longer about how cheap the meal that you can give its how you put a spin on something Filipinos have not tried before. The complete menu was passed on to customers who were curious what they can try in this new branch. There’s a long wait time, but surely in the next few days you should try to dine-in at Popeye’s minus the pageantry and the huge crowd.

For now enjoy the perspective of what went down early today at SM City Manila when Popeye’s Louisiana Kitchen opened its second branch. For more upcoming events, promotions, and the next branch to open follow Popeye’s through their social media via Facebook and Instagram.