Regina Troy Barrios

Three Years At No. 1: How Jollibee's Chickenjoy Became An American Favorite

Article (news)

<p><a href="https://10best.usatoday.com/awards/jollibee/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><strong>Chickenjoy</strong> just won <em>USA Today&#x27;s</em> <strong>10Best Readers&#x27; Choice Award for Best Fast Food Fried Chicken</strong></a> for the third year in a row. It beat Church&#x27;s Texas Chicken, Roy Rogers, and Chick-fil-A, which came in seventh.</p><div><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1784787436791USA-Today-10Best.jpg" style="width:960px" class="fr-fic fr-dib" width="960"/></div><p>The first win, in 2024, could be explained as loyal Filipinos in the diaspora showing up to vote. The second suggested it wasn&#x27;t a fluke. The third makes it hard to argue that Chickenjoy is still just a novelty.</p><p>Jollibee&#x27;s U.S. story didn&#x27;t start as a fried chicken story. It started as a homesickness story. The first American branch opened in Daly City, California, in 1998, and for years its core customers were Filipinos looking for familiar flavors. Peach Mango Pie, spaghetti, palabok—these weren&#x27;t just menu items. They were reminders of home.</p><p>When American food writers noticed Jollibee, they often treated it as a curiosity. Early stories marveled at its sweet spaghetti—Anthony Bourdain famously called it &quot;deranged yet strangely alluring&quot;—along with burger steak, halo-halo, and gravy served with fried chicken. Chickenjoy was not on their radar yet.</p><div><br/></div><div><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/lS-c1oKMJOg?si=vONgJIWUD4d3p288" title="YouTube video player" frameBorder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></div><p>That shift did not happen overnight. In a<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/14/dining/jollibee-review.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> 2019 <em>New York Times</em> review, Pete Wells focused not on the novelty of Jollibee&#x27;s menu, but on the fried chicken itself: &quot;The pleasures of Chickenjoy, as it’s called, are immediate: The sheath of skin is as craggy as a thunderhead, crannies, and crunch multiplying.&quot;</a></p><p>By 2022, Eater crowned Chickenjoy &quot;the best chain fried chicken in America&quot; after a four-round taste test against 15 other brands, including Popeyes, KFC, Church&#x27;s, and Chick-fil-A. <em>Eater</em> deputy editor Lesley Suter was struck by what made the chicken stand out: <a href="https://www.eater.com/23158615/best-fast-food-fried-chicken-bracket" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">&quot;The real surprise here was the chicken itself: satisfyingly light, flavorful in a &#x27;tastes like chicken&#x27; sort of way, and supremely moist.&quot; </a>The conversation had shifted. Jollibee was no longer being covered only for its sweet spaghetti and other unfamiliar menu items; Chickenjoy was being judged on its own merits—and against America&#x27;s biggest fried chicken chains.</p><p>The critics were ahead of the public. Two years later, <a href="https://metro.style/food/features/jollibee-s-fried-chicken-is-america-s-favorite/38624" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>USA Today&#x27;s</em> readers voted Chickenjoy America&#x27;s best fast-food fried chicken</a>. It won again in 2025. This week&#x27;s third consecutive victory suggests the enthusiasm wasn&#x27;t confined to food writers or Filipino fans.</p><p>Maribeth Dela Cruz, president of Jollibee&#x27;s Philippine Brands business in North America, put it simply in 2020: &quot;I believe that great tasting food has no barriers.&quot; The years since have been a quiet validation of that idea.</p><p>Jollibee now has 109 stores across North America—81 in the United States and 28 in Canada—including a third Manhattan location that opened near Grand Central Terminal in March. Company executives say roughly 95 percent of customers there are non-Filipino.</p><p>That&#x27;s the real headline. A line of Filipinos waiting for Jollibee is nostalgia. A line made up mostly of New Yorkers is something else entirely.</p><p>James Beard Award-winning writer Yasmin Tayag saw a bigger story in Jollibee&#x27;s rise. America introduced fast food culture to the Philippines decades ago, where it found an eager audience. Jollibee took that format and reshaped it around Filipino tastes. Now, that distinctly Filipino version is making its way back to the United States—and finding an audience far beyond the Filipino community.</p><iframe class="instagram-media instagram-media-rendered" id="instagram-embed-0" src="https://www.instagram.com/p/DaYO5mZMSSD/embed/?cr=1&amp;v=14&amp;wp=1080&amp;rd=https%3A%2F%2Fod2-workbench-web.abs-cbn.com&amp;rp=%2F#%7B%22ci%22%3A0%2C%22os%22%3A1088648%7D" allowtransparency="true" allowfullscreen="" frameBorder="0" height="925" data-instgrm-payload-id="instagram-media-payload-0" scrolling="no" style="background:white;max-width:540px;width:calc(100% - 2px);border-radius:3px;border:1px solid rgb(219, 219, 219);box-shadow:none;display:block;margin:0px 0px 12px;min-width:326px;padding:0px"></iframe><script async="" src="//www.instagram.com/embed.js"></script><p>Jollibee&#x27;s goal is 500 stores across North America by 2030. Not long ago, that would have seemed like wishful thinking. Today, after years of winning over critics and diners alike, it looks increasingly attainable.</p>

<p>Jollibee's Chickenjoy has won USA Today's Best Fast Food Fried Chicken award for three consecutive years, marking the Filipino chain's journey from a diaspora favorite and American curiosity to a mainstream fried chicken contender in the United States.</p>

Jollibee's Chickenjoy has won USA Today's Best Fast Food Fried Chicken award for three consecutive years, marking the Filipino chain's journey from a diaspora favorite and American curiosity to a mainstream fried chicken contender in the United States.

Three Years At No. 1: How Jollibee's Chickenjoy Became An American Favorite

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Three Years At No. 1: How Jollibee's Chickenjoy Became An American Favorite

Troy Barrios

Published July 22, 2026 02:30 PM PHT

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Updated July 23, 2026 02:26 PM PHT

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