Results tagged “foreign chains”

3-57 Saint Nicholas Ave, Ridgewood, Queens. L-Train to Myrtle-Wycoff Aves.

Pollo Campero is a Guatemalan fast food chicken chain. It arrived in the United States in 2002 and currently has three locations in New York City: Ridgewood, Corona, and Washington Heights. A Sunset Park location closed within a year of its opening.

The Ridgewood location is brand new, having opened in July of this year. It is easy to reach as it's only a block from the Myrtle-Wycoff Avenues L-Train station and Brooklyn's Bushwick neighborhood. This restaurant is rather large and even has a small indoor playground similar to what you would find at a suburban McDonalds. The dining area was extremely clean during my visit and the tables were even lightly decorated with colorful tissue paper. Latin music via XM/Sirius satellite radio was playing and some customers were even dancing!

The Pollo Campero menu is split about 50/50 between fried and grilled chicken. There are several small sides available, your choice of which is included in the combo meals, as well as several extra slides, such as a small salad, available at an extra cost. Combo meals also include the choice of either bread or tortillas.

I chose the 1/4 white meat chicken meal ($6.49 plus tax) and chose coleslaw as a side (the meals generally have a specific side mentioned but you can substitute), as well as tortillas. Beverage options include a self-serve soda fountain and several tropical beverage options which the staff will dispense for you. There is a salsa bar next to the soda fountain and also a ketchup pump (always a big plus).

The presentation of the meal was excellent. The chicken was served on a real plate along with the tortillas, which were in a plastic wrapper. My coleslaw came in a bowl and was a larger portion than I had expected.

The meal was absolutely delicious. The grilled chicken had a flavorful coating, was moist, and practically fell off the bone. The coleslaw was of a relatively coarse cut and tasted fresh and not overly-mayonnaise-like. I didn't really have a clue what to do with the tortillas, as I was eating the chicken off the bone, so I simply ripped off pieces of them as I went along.

Overall this is a restaurant worth checking out. The healthy options will certainly be appreciated by many, and the clean and welcoming appearance is certainly leagues better than the average New York City chicken chain. One can only hope that this chain will continue to expand throughout the city.

Fun fact: Both Pollo Campero's Ridgewood and Washington Heights locations are on (completely unrelated) Saint Nicholas Avenues.

Last week we found out Tim Hortons will be arriving in New York City in August, opening in three Cold Stone Creamery locations. While I and several newspaper articles described this as Tim Hortons entering the "Coffee Wars" of New York City, three locations wouldn't be much of a stronghold.

Entirely independent of this co-branded arrival next month, Riese Restaurants, a major franchiser of fast food options in New York City's main economic zones, announced this past day that it's replacing its 13 Dunkin' Donuts locations with Tim Hortons. And, amazingly, will complete the conversion between the close of business Friday and the Monday morning breakfast rush.

Riese and Dunkin' Donuts have a decade-long feud which started in 1999 when The New York Post published a photo of a mouse sitting on one doughnut and nibbling on another, shot at a Riese-run Dunkin' Donuts in Midtown. The photo even got a nod on The Late Show with David Letterman. Dunkin' sued Riese and tried to remove their franchise rights.

In the spirit of that photo, which I haven't found on the internet, I have attached a photo of a chipmunk and a Tim Hortons cup!

Riese has also mentioned that its Dunkin' sales were bad outside of breakfast time, which it hopes to remedy with Tim Hortons vast sandwich offering and lower franchise fees.

Riese has already removed all mentions of Dunkin' Donuts from its website, and has not created a page for Tim Hortons yet. Thus, using the Wayback Machine, here is the list of Riese-run Dunkin' Donuts locations as of last year:

761 7th Avenue @ 50th St. New York, NY  Phone: (212) 767-8347		48 New Street @ Wall St. New York, NY  Phone: (212) 483-8319		152 West 34th Street bet. 6th & 7th Ave. New York, NY  Phone: (212)630-0319
2547 Broadway @ 94th St. New York, NY  Phone: (212)316-2915		1276 Lexington Avenue @ 86th St. New York, NY  Phone: (212) 339-8868		47 East 42nd St. bet. Park & Madison Ave. New York, NY  Phone: (212) 681-8501
Penn Station LIRR Level New York, NY  Phone: 630-0314		Penn Station Amtrak Level* New York, NY  Phone: (212)630-0320		Madison Square Garden Taxi Ramp New York, NY  Phone: (212)594-0204
451 Fulton Street Brooklyn, NY  Phone: (718) 237-9346		22 Court Street Brooklyn, NY  Phone: (718) 624-1107		50 Fulton Street @ Cliff St. New York, NY  Phone: (212)732-6551

* This location is still under a larger renovation.

Photo credit: Photo by Mark Olson. Licence Information

62-29 Roosevelt Avenue, Woodside, Queens

Jollibee is an American-style fast food chain from the Philippines. There are currently 26 locations in the United States, but only one east of Las Vegas, and it's in Woodside, Queens.

Located conveniently on the LIRR and 7-Line Woodside stop, this restaurant opened this past February to much fanfare. The interior has a McDonalds feel, albeit with a much more colorful color scheme.

When was the last time you saw Ronald McDonald depicted inside a McDonalds? He seems rather phased out these days. In contrast, Jollibee's logo, the Jollibee, a red and yellow bee with a chef's hat is all over the establishment, including in life size outside.

The menu is divided between four types of entrées: Chicken, spaghetti, burgers, and traditional Filipino. The chicken has the largest focus, with twice as menu boards as anything else. It is available with just about anything else on the menu, from fries to rice to spaghetti.

Spaghetti dishes are available with toppings such as a tomato sauce with hot pieces and a shrimp sauce. The burgers include ones typical of McDonalds and an "Aloha Burger" which is a burger with bacon and pineapple. There is also a small traditional section consisting of beef patties with rice and egg rolls (listed as "coming soon").

What's interesting is that this Jollibee practices, what I like to call "burger stacking" - the practice of filling up a display case with burgers without an actual order being attached. This used to be common across the fast food industry, but has long fallen out of favor to the "made to order" mentality. Besides burgers, the various chicken and pasta dishes were also stacked.

One other location I had witnessed this was Chick-fil-A Express at NYU. To be fair, at both these restaurants the demand was so great that the prepared food probably didn't bask in the case for more than five minutes.

I ordered a Aloha Burger Combo, consisting of the pineapple-topped burger, fries, and a drink. Even though my burger had been anxiously awaiting me in the display case for five minutes, I still had to wait another five minutes or so for the next batch of fries to be ready.

This Jollibee has self-serve soda fountains, a feature usually reserved for suburban and rural fast food locations. Unfortunately there was no ketchup pump (a big plus in my mind), so I had to manually squeeze out several ketchup packets onto my burger's wrapper.

The Aloha Burger was certainly a unique experience, thanks to the pineapple. The sweet taste was not earth shattering, so I would not recommend against it. After all, pineapple on pizza is not totally uncommon, so why not try it on a burger? The burger itself was larger than it looked on the display board, which was a pleasant surprise to me, as I was very hungry and concerned about this while ordering.

One downside to eating a pineapple burger? Just like pineapple anything, that fruit gets stuck in your teeth. I think it should come with a toothpick attached - that would be a good gesture.

All in all, I recommend giving Jollibee a shot. As I often say on this blog, it's a pleasant alternative to McDonalds and the other common fast food chains.

Tim Hortons, the Canadian coffee and doughnuts chain, will enter Manhattan this August with three locations co-branded with Cold Stone Creamery. One location will be in Coldstone's flagship Times Square location, while the remaining two locations have not been leaked.

The chain will use promotions such as free coffee instead of media blitzing, The Financial Post reports. The three stores will be used as an indicator of how well Tim Hortons can perform in New York City, which already has Starbucks, Dunkin' Donuts, and McDonalds fighting over residents' and and tourists' caffeine addictions.

Currently the closest Tim Hortons is in Meriden, Connecticut.