A new Jollibee restaurant will open in San Francisco tomorrow, six years after its announcement.
The restaurant faced many challenges that slowed down its initial opening, such as the COVID-19 pandemic.
Mayor Daniel Lurie joined a few devoted citizens and other officials to celebrate the soft opening on Market Street. He also discussed his administrations effort to streamline permitting and other bureocratic obstacles that harm businesses.
“It’s unacceptable that it took six years. And it’s why from day one we’ve been trying to slash the red tape, cut the bureaucracy, get more permits online. 80% of permits right now are done in 30 days or less. Many of them can be done online,” Mayor Lurie said.
The union representing city IT workers raised red flags about what they allege are security holes in the permitting software that was created by a San Francisco-based tech company called OpenGov.
But last month, the city’s Civil Service Commission allowed the lucrative contract to remain.
Supervisor Danny Sauter, the new representative of the district where the restaurant now is, says the permitting process used to be a labyrinth of departments.
“This was, believe it or not, a historic district. And so, there was almost a year of going back and forth between the business and city departments to understand, is this in the district, is it not? What does that actually mean? And that’s a clear example of; we can’t put up with that nonsense in the figure,” he said.
Beginning tomorrow, devoted Jollibee fans will finally get to enjoy the restaurant’s signature fried chicken and spaghetti.