On Jollibee, unassuming power, and the art of knowing what deserves your attention.
Written by Amélie Rae Mayumi
THE NOUN | CULTURE & PHILOSOPHY | 7-MINUTE READ
There's a good chance you've spent money at a Jollibee-owned business without ever eating at Jollibee.
Perhaps you've ordered a burger from Smashburger, picked up a coffee at The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, enjoyed dim sum at Tim Ho Wan, or visited Compose Coffee while traveling through South Korea.
All four belong, wholly or through controlling interests, to the Jollibee Group.
Yes. That Jollibee.
The one with the enormous red bee in a chef's hat. The one known for sweet spaghetti, fried chicken that pairs perfectly with its gravy, and a mascot that dances with the enthusiasm of someone who has never experienced a bad day.
As of its second-quarter 2026 reporting, the Filipino restaurant group had grown to 10,767 stores and cafés across 33 countries, with a portfolio encompassing 20 brands.
I knew Jollibee was successful, particularly among Filipinos and Filipino communities abroad. What I hadn't appreciated was how much of its influence extended beyond the restaurants bearing its name.
The discovery reminded me of two of my favorite characters: Uncle Iroh from Avatar: The Last Airbender and Monkey D. Luffy from One Piece.
I realize that a retired general, a pirate captain, and a fast-food mascot make for an unlikely comparison.
But there's something I've always admired about Iroh and Luffy that I recognized in Jollibee's history.
Neither character is particularly concerned with convincing people to take him seriously.
Both are routinely underestimated. Iroh is dismissed as a harmless old man, while Luffy's carefree personality and unconventional appearance invite ridicule from people who assume they know exactly what he's capable of.
Yet neither allows every insult to interrupt his larger purpose.
And when McDonald's entered the Philippines in 1981, Jollibee was a young business with just twelve stores. Its founders were warned that competing with the American giant would be impossible.
Nearly five decades later, Jollibee has become the flagship of an international restaurant group.
What fascinates me about these three stories isn't the revelation that someone underestimated eventually becomes powerful.
It's the relationship each has with being underestimated in the first place.
There is a difference between ignoring a challenge and refusing to be distracted by the noise surrounding it.
The Pirate Who Wouldn't Fight
One of the clearest examples appears in the Jaya arc of One Piece.
In Mock Town, Luffy and Zoro encounter Bellamy, an arrogant pirate who delights in humiliating people he considers beneath him.
When Luffy's crew asks about Sky Island, Bellamy and the other pirates erupt in laughter.
To them, the idea is ridiculous. They mock the existence of Sky Island, dismiss legendary treasures, and ridicule anyone foolish enough to pursue such dreams.
Bellamy assaults Luffy and Zoro.
Neither fights back.
Even when Nami urges them to defend themselves, they refuse to turn the encounter into a contest of pride.
Luffy has already defeated opponents far more dangerous than Bellamy. He has nothing meaningful to establish by winning a fight against someone whose opinion he doesn't value.
But the story doesn't end with him walking away.
Later, Bellamy attacks Mont Blanc Cricket and his companions, people who have helped Luffy's crew, and steals their gold.
This time, Luffy returns.
Bellamy continues to mock him, still convinced that the pirate standing before him is weak.
Luffy defeats him with a single punch.
It's one of my favorite distinctions in the series.
Luffy doesn't fight because someone laughs at his dream.
He fights when someone harms people he cares about.
His restraint isn't an inability to respond. It's a refusal to let someone else decide what deserves his energy.
That difference becomes increasingly significant as his journey progresses.
There will always be someone who doubts his ambitions, questions his abilities, or considers his dreams absurd. If he stopped to answer every one of them, he would never reach the next island.
The General Who Let Them Laugh
Uncle Iroh offers another remarkable example.
Throughout Avatar: The Last Airbender, he's frequently presented as a gentle, tea-loving old man who seems more interested in finding a good cup of jasmine tea than demonstrating his formidable abilities.
But the history behind that demeanor is extraordinary.
Iroh was once a celebrated Fire Nation general, known as the Dragon of the West. He led the siege of Ba Sing Se, suffered the loss of his son, and eventually abandoned the campaign.
He knows what power can accomplish, and what it can cost.
By the third season, Iroh has been imprisoned.
His jailer, Warden Poon, treats him with contempt, mocking his age, appearance, and apparent helplessness.
Iroh allows the man to believe he's deteriorating.
But when the guards aren't watching, he's training.
In the episode “Sokka's Master,” we see him performing increasingly demanding exercises in his cell. When the warden hears suspicious sounds and approaches, Iroh immediately resumes his performance as a confused old man.
The guard leaves, satisfied that there's nothing to worry about.
Iroh continues preparing.
During the Day of Black Sun, when a solar eclipse temporarily prevents firebenders from using their abilities, Iroh escapes.
The warden who had treated him as a pathetic prisoner is left stunned by the strength of the man he underestimated.
What interests me about this sequence is Iroh's patience.
He could have spent his imprisonment trying to remind everyone of his former status.
Instead, he allows them to believe what they want while quietly working toward something far more important.
His silence isn't surrender.
He simply doesn't confuse his reputation with his actual capabilities.
And because he isn't preoccupied with defending the former, he can devote his attention to developing the latter.
Twelve Stores Against McDonald's
Jollibee's history has a much less theatrical beginning.
In 1975, Tony Tan Caktiong and his family opened two Magnolia ice cream parlors in the Philippines.
Customers began requesting hot food, and the family eventually expanded the menu to include sandwiches and hamburgers.
By 1978, the business had become Jollibee.
Three years later, McDonald's entered the Philippines.
In a 2013 Forbes interview, Tan Caktiong recalled the concern surrounding the American company's arrival. Jollibee was small, and McDonald's possessed the systems, resources, and experience of an established international operation.
The founders understood the scale of the challenge.
But they didn't respond by assuming defeat or relying on confidence alone.
Jollibee's management traveled to the United States to study McDonald's operations.
They evaluated the competition across advertising, service speed, store design, equipment, and other factors that influenced customers' choices.
McDonald's had the advantage in nearly every category.
Except taste.
According to Tan Caktiong, Jollibee's food was better suited to Filipino preferences.
That became an important part of their strategy.
They worked to improve the areas where the international competitor was stronger while preserving the flavors their customers already preferred.
It's a useful distinction: not being distracted by criticism doesn't mean being unwilling to learn from it.
Jollibee's founders didn't ignore the reality of competing against a vastly larger company.
They took the challenge seriously without accepting the assumption that the outcome was inevitable.
And they didn't abandon their customers' preferences simply because an international competitor had arrived with a different menu.
Chickenjoy, with its crispy skin and gravy. Jolly Spaghetti, with its sweet sauce, hot dogs, and cheese. Peach Mango Pie, with its familiar tropical flavors.
These foods weren't designed to satisfy some universal standard of what fast food ought to taste like.
They were developed around the people Jollibee served.
The company continued expanding, first through its strong position in the Philippines and later through international markets, acquisitions, and investments.
Today, the broader group includes restaurant and café brands with origins in the United States, Hong Kong, South Korea, and elsewhere.
A Filipino business once warned about the arrival of an American restaurant giant now owns an American burger chain and a California-founded coffee business.
That reversal makes for an entertaining piece of business history.
But what I admire most about the early story is the work that happened between the warning and the outcome.
Jollibee's founders didn't merely believe they could compete.
They found out what competing would require and got to work.
The Work Behind the Recognition
I was reminded of that distinction again when I learned about Jollibee's collaboration with Filipino pastry chef Nouel Catis.
In October 2026, Jollibee Philippines introduced a limited-edition Pistachio Choco Sundae developed with Catis, whose culinary work helped create the original confection that became internationally known as Dubai chocolate.
The viral chocolate bar emerged from a collaboration between FIX Dessert Chocolatier founder Sarah Hamouda and Catis, who was working as a pastry chef and culinary consultant in Dubai.
Hamouda envisioned putting an entire dessert inside a chocolate bar. Catis helped develop the recipes, drawing in part on his familiarity with Middle Eastern sweets.
The result combined chocolate, pistachio, and crispy kunafa-inspired filling.
It eventually became an international phenomenon.
Yet Catis had spent much of his career working behind the scenes.
In interviews, he has discussed the years of professional experience, experimentation, and recipe development that contributed to his work.
The chocolate became globally recognizable long before most consumers knew his name.
That detail interests me.
We often encounter someone's success only after the work has become impossible to overlook.
We see the finished creation, the restaurant empire, or the extraordinary display of ability.
We don't always see the years of practice, decisions, mistakes, or persistence that made the result possible.
Catis's collaboration with Jollibee adds a particularly lovely dimension to that story.
The chef who helped develop a dessert celebrated around the world is now working with a Filipino restaurant brand he knew growing up.
The Pistachio Choco Sundae combines vanilla soft serve, a pistachio shell, chocolate syrup, and diced pistachios. It launched in the Philippines on October 16, with the promotion scheduled through December 31, 2026.
It's a collaboration between two different kinds of Filipino success stories, one established over decades and the other newly recognized by an international audience.
Both remind me how much can happen before the rest of the world begins paying attention.
A General, a Pirate & a Bee Walk Into a Karaoke Bar
At some point during my research, I began imagining Uncle Iroh, Luffy, and Jollibee at the same karaoke table.
Iroh would probably order tea.
Luffy would be distracted by the food.
And Jollibee would certainly be the first one dancing.
I like the image because all three are so wonderfully unpretentious.
None needs a serious expression, intimidating appearance, or constant demonstration of authority to possess influence.
But their stories also remind us that composure isn't simply a personality trait.
It's a decision about where to direct our attention.
Iroh knows when to remain silent and when to act.
Luffy can tolerate ridicule without abandoning his ambitions, but he draws a line when the people he cares about are harmed.
Jollibee's founders recognized that they couldn't afford to dismiss a formidable competitor. What they could do was refuse to let predictions of failure determine their response.
Their circumstances and motivations are entirely different, yet there's an observation worth drawing from all three.
Not every challenge requires a public response. Some require preparation. Others require persistence. And a few require us to recognize that someone else's opinion was never an obstacle in the first place.
As a homeschooling parent, I think about this distinction often.
My sons are growing up in a world where opinions are constant, reactions are immediate, and even the smallest disagreement can become a performance for an audience.
I want them to develop the confidence to distinguish between criticism that teaches them something and noise that merely asks for their attention.
I want them to be open to learning, without feeling obligated to change direction every time someone questions their choices.
And I want them to understand that kindness, humor, patience, and a cheerful disposition aren't indications that someone lacks strength.
There's a reason I admire Iroh and Luffy as characters.
Their confidence doesn't depend entirely on how other people perceive them.
They continue doing what matters to them.
Of course, real life is more complicated than fiction. Persistence isn't a guarantee of success, and refusing to engage isn't always the appropriate response.
But I think there's wisdom in learning that we don't owe every challenge the same amount of energy.
Sometimes the most meaningful response is to keep doing the work.
The Stories That Couldn't Fit
I originally developed this essay while working on THE NOUN No. 002 — Swells & Soul Food.
Throughout production, we researched, interviewed, wrote, photographed, and designed stories exploring food, wellness, travel, art, and culture.
One subject frequently led to another. Conversations introduced new questions, and small editorial ideas became articles that deserved more room than we'd anticipated.
Eventually, we had more stories than we could accommodate in the magazine's 120 interior pages.
That's part of editing a publication. A magazine needs structure, pacing, and a sense of completeness. Even stories we care about can't always make the final selection.
But I don't believe a story loses its value simply because there wasn't enough room for it.
So we'll be sharing some of the additional articles developed during production through THE NOUN's blog, alongside our free digital magazine.
This Jollibee essay is one of them.
What began as an investigation into a Filipino fast-food company eventually took me through restaurant history, an international dessert phenomenon, and two fictional characters whose approach to adversity has stayed with me.
I still haven't decided what the general, the pirate, and the bee would sing at karaoke.
But I suspect none of them would be terribly concerned about how they sounded.
We may have reached the magazine's page limit.
We certainly haven't run out of stories worth telling.
