Jollibee sets July 31 opening near Union Square after years of delays

Jollibee will open its long-awaited San Francisco restaurant at 934 Market St. on July 31, giving Union Square a Filipino fast-food anchor steps from Powell Street BART after nearly six years of delays. The storefront sits in a former Payless ShoeSource, in the middle of a downtown corridor that has spent years trying to refill empty windows and bring back steady foot traffic.

The chain’s arrival has been in the making since 2020, with talk of a Union Square opening circulating since at least 2021. Jollibee had previously said the Market Street location would open sometime in 2025 while construction was still underway, but the date kept slipping until this week’s announcement locked in a grand opening.

The final stretch at the site has made the opening feel close. The black construction boards have come down, a “chicken burgers fries” sign is up, and fryers are already in place ahead of the debut. That kind of visibility matters in Union Square, where vacant retail spaces have become a shorthand for the city’s uneven downtown recovery.

For Filipino San Franciscans, the opening adds something more than another chain restaurant. Jollibee is one of the most recognizable Filipino brands in the country, and putting a location near Union Square makes it reachable by BART for shoppers, workers and families coming through downtown from across the city and the wider Bay Area. The Powell Street station is one of the busiest transit hubs in San Francisco, and the restaurant’s placement there gives it built-in exposure on a block that still depends on every new reason for people to linger.

The timing also gives Market Street another test case for whether a high-profile tenant can help reset expectations around the corridor. Union Square remains one of the places most often cited in coverage of downtown vacancy and slower pedestrian activity, and Jollibee’s opening will put a popular, long-delayed brand directly into that recovery story. If the July 31 launch goes as planned, the line outside 934 Market St. will be the clearest sign yet that the neighborhood is still capable of drawing a crowd.