I had a very scary experience with Filipino food and have never tried it again.....with that being said....I do think Filipino deserts and bread are yummy.

It's been too long since I have visited the Philippine Bread House and the Red Ribbon Bakery. Why did i give up sugar???

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Doing some quick looking on google, the Gold's is apparently in the West Side neighborhood (never heard it called that btw), while the other gym (Heavy Hitters) is in Bergen-Lafayette about a block from the border.

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I do not consider this area Greenville or Lafayette this is according to most maps of JC neighborhoods the end of the J>square area sharing the 07304 zip.

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That's not correct. There's a Gold's Gym on Communipaw near the McDonalds across from the park, and there's a boxing gym also on Communipaw near the large KFC a couple blocks from Lincoln HS

User1111 if you didn't know..the gym was called the Society Hill Gym. It had nothing to do with SH but they took the name because of where it was located.

It was the perfect sized gym just enough room for machines (weight and jogging), free weights, and a mirrored aerobic area. They even had nightly instructor led dance/workout classes. It was there for many years but the place went belly up with the recession like everything else. I knew it was in troble when they added a juice bar.(I guess they were trying for some extra money)

Now most people in the area go to the Bayonne gyms.

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None of Greenville has a gym nor does Bergen Lafayette, this town only has gym's downtown... and a few crappy ones at the square.

Some comments on the new Jollibee joint.

-The line on Monday night was still down the block towards OLM.
-The place is small inside hence the long lines. (I went there a few times when it was the small SH Gym)
-The business owners in the strip mall have got to be pissed. The entire parking lot is taken up by the Jollibee patrons. People are use to parking and running in the Rite Aid, Subway, Laundromat, Minimart, liquor store, bank. Good luck with that from 7am to 10pm.
-One of the business owners in the strip mall told me Jollibee made $100K on Sunday.WOW!
-For the JC old-timers it is like going to the old ?Mister S? up in the heights on the State Highway. (or a 1970?s Mickey D?s)
-Speaking of Mickey D?s I guess the one on the city line will now be less crowded.

-Some history of the area. The Country Village area didn?t have many Filipino?s in the 90?s. Our Lady of Mercy Church/School was in decline, most of the kids of the old-timer CV crowd were moving to the burbs. There was a big factory on the lot next to OLM. In the 90?s when the real estate market was hot a new development called Franklin Park was built on the factory lot. The Filipino?s really gobbled up all of the two family houses. It was good for the area because OLM Church and School started to pick up again. Filipino?s now also spread out into CV.

The one thing that really bugs me is how Jollibee is getting away with having two massive storage units in the parking lot behind their restaurant. The CV home owner?s whose rear windows face them must love that. One looks like it is for dry goods. But the other plainly states from the writing on the side that it is a cold storage unit. The wires to the storage units are strung up from the store to the units. (WTH?) Like I said that SH Gym was small I didn?t think a full blown restaurant could fit in that space. They should have opened up around National Warehouse or K-Mart maybe with a stand alone building in the parking lot with plenty of parking and a drive thru.

Hey all of you smaller JC bars and restaurants if you have some space in your yards you should look into moving your dry and cold storage out into your yards. It will give you more interior space for more tables.

PS- the food at Jollibee is good, but I think I will stick to Popeye?s for my chicken and Mickey D?s for my burgers. (unless the lines eventually calm down) Also it is ironic that Jollibee replaced the area?s only gym serving CV and SH. Now instead of being a place to get in shape it is a place to get fat! (hey maybe a Mayor Bloomberg move is in order, there are way too many young kids on those long lines)

June 10, 2012, 9:39 p.m. ET
Sweet Spaghetti, And a Bit of Pride

The Wall Street Journal
By HEATHER HADDON

JERSEY CITY, N.J.?A growing Filipino community here has a new community center of a sort?a chain restaurant that offers purple yam tapioca shakes and sports a bee mascot.

Jersey City's Filipinos turned out in droves on Sunday for the opening of the East Coast's second Jollibee, a Filipino fast-food restaurant that is revered as the island nation's McDonald's.

For the hundreds of Filipinos who flocked there, the debut offered a coveted chance to eat the crispy fried chicken and sweet spaghetti of home. It also stood as a sign of their community's rising stature in Jersey City, which just swore in its first Filipino councilman last year.

"I've been waiting for this for months," said Rayanne Ella, 32, a Jersey City sales manager who dined with her entire family at the opening. "It's a point of pride."

For years, Filipinos from New Jersey's second-largest city have made pilgrimages to the Jollibee in Woodside, Queens. The lines there, much like at the opening here on Sunday, often stretch out the door and down the block.

"It's very heartwarming," said Iyoh Villamayor, a Jollibee vice president, about Sunday's turnout. Hundreds of people drove to the nondescript strip mall in the city's Greenville section and walked over from the nearby Our Lady of Mercy Catholic church during the day.

While better known for its Indian community, Jersey City boasts New Jersey's largest Filipino population, with 16,200 inhabitants, according to the 2010 Census. Bergenfield and Union Township were ranked a distant second and third.

Filipinos began migrating to the waterfront city in the 1960s, settling in the Five Corners neighborhood in Journal Square and in more residential neighborhoods in the southwest section. A vibrant downtown community concentrated around Manila Avenue has dwindled in recent years.

Many of the first-generation immigrants were doctors, engineers and other professionals looking to escape the Marcos regime and fill trade-worker shortages in the U.S., said Rolando Lavarro, the city's new councilman-at-large, whose parents immigrated to New Jersey in the 1970s.

More recent immigrants have tended to come from lower-skill trades, and the community is a mix of the working and middle class, said Mr. Lavarro, adding that concerns about crime and the draw of the suburbs have led some to leave. Census statistics show that the Filipino population rose only 2.2% between 2000 and 2010, while Indians more than doubled in the city.

Unlike members of the older generation, who looked to assimilate, newer residents are more inclined to teach their children Tagalog and to seek out Filipino pop culture, Mr. Lavarro said. Two local cinemas occasionally show Filipino movies, and Jollibee was filled with youthful dinners speaking the country's dialect.

Jersey City "is definitely a destination. There are a lot of the trappings of home," said Mr. Lavarro, a 42-year-old grants manager, who is the first Asian-American to sit on the city's nine-member council.

Anticipation for the opening of Jersey City's Jollibee grew for months, stoked by Facebook and word of mouth. The company?which owns restaurant chains worldwide and reported $3.2 billion in earnings last year?is famous for its bee mascot wearing a chef's hat.

"I have memories of this from when I was a kid," said Sai Ansano, 32, a creative-arts director who has lived in the city since 1985.

The restaurant's most popular items are fried chicken, burgers and spaghetti topped with ham and a sweet tomato sauce. More traditional Filipino dishes, such as milkfish and thin noodle pancit, are also served.

The food is an acquired taste.

"My boys were scared at first. I got them to get into it," said Michael Szymanski, a 54-year-old who works in Jersey City's school. He was one of the restaurant's few patrons Sunday who wasn't Filipino.

Born as an ice-cream parlor in Cubao in 1975, Jollibee is now the largest restaurant group in the Philippines, with 746 branches, according to company statistics. Outposts have also cropped up in Vietnam, Brunei and Qatar, where there are large numbers of Filipino guest workers. Most of the 27 branches in the U.S. are on the West Coast.

The company spent two years planning the Jersey City outpost, spending $1 million to remodel an old gym, Ms. Villamayor said. The chain aims to further expand into the U.S., with a branch in Virginia Beach, Va., set to be the third on the East Coast.

The company's expansion could bode well if the devoted following in Jersey City is any indication. One man set up a director's chair outside the restaurant at 5 a.m. to be the first person inside.

Said Ms. Villamayor, "He wanted to make history."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001 ... 6.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

If you've driven down Danforth Avenue in Jersey City today and wondered what that long line of people is -- it's throngs of Jollibee fans hungry for the Filipino fast-food chain's opening day in Hudson.
The eatery -- which the website filipinosinjc.com calls the biggest and most popular chain in the Philippines -- is only the second one the East Coast, following one in New York.
It pumped up the excitement today with posts on its Facebook page starting before their 7 a.m. opening.
The chain is known for their fried chicken, spaghetti and burgers, Jersey Journal staff writer Mark DeGuzman says, but they sell uniquely Filipino items like lumpia (egg rolls), pancit (noodles), and breakfast items.
The restaurant, open from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily, is located at 393 Danforth Ave., at Sullivan Drive.

Interesting menu, I'd go off my diet to try the hash brown burger


http://www.jollibee.com.ph/menu/burger

Resurrecting this thread....

Jollibee is scheduled to open Sunday, June 10th at 7:00 am.


https://www.facebook.com/#!/JollibeeJerseyCity

I heard from a friend that the new Jollibee will be opening on West Side Ave. near the Rite Aid there. No idea when this is supposed to happen though.

Jollibee Chicken & Burgers
Danforth Plaza
393 Danforth Ave
Jersey City, NJ 07305

http://jollibeeusa.com