We all love food. Anyone of us probably had our favourite kind of dish that we grew up with, yet for some reason, could no longer find once we get older. For every new restaurant we see open up in the Philippines, we see quite a few of them close, for one reason or another. Here are 8 restaurants we knew and loved, gone, but not truly forgotten.
Best Known For: Chicken Barbecue
Cindy’s was the place to be, until at some point, nobody thought so. Ever since, Cindy’s slowly morphed into the shell of itself that you see now: just another restaurant serving Filipino food in mall food courts with zero personality and zero distinction from the rest of its competition.
Best Known For: Orange Juice and other awesome Juices
This and Mango Brutus were very popular in the late ‘80s to early ‘90s, but in the wake of more new-fangled juice places, Orange Julius fell into obscurity, and pretty much all but disappeared.
Best Known For: Buy-One-Take-One Pizzas (It’s NOT a Promo!)
They had tasty pizza, and it was square! It was pretty awesome starting out, since they would always give you two pizzas for the prize of one, and you couldn’t go wrong with the sheer amount of pepperoni they would slather on their specialty. Despite that, deteriorating food quality over time led to its downfall locally, and there may be one branch remaining after all these years, but nowhere near the kind of quality you expected when it came into the market with all guns ablaze.
Call 898-7777 for yourself to see if they still deliver. You might be surprised who picks up.
Best Known For: The Choriburger
Bun On The Run is awesome, because it was the easiest way to get your Choriburger fix without having to go all the way to Boracay. Out of all the great sandwiches BOTR had on its roster, you couldn’t go wrong with closing your eyes and pointing to the menu at random to end up with a winner of a sandwich.
Best Known For: The Star Burger and Onion Rings
Carl’s Jr tried its luck in the Philippines twice. It also failed twice. That’s kind of sad, really, because their burgers were definitely tastier than most of its competition in the same price range. The Star Burger was delectable, and was the precursor of all those burgers trying to drown you in bacon today, and their onion rings, with how tasty and well-cooked they happened to be, were the reflection of perfection.
Best Known For: The Rootber Float and the Coney Dog
Forget the burgers at A&W. It was the hotdog that really made them rule the roost. With their tasty hotdogs and rootbeer floats served in a frosty mug, it was really hard to find good comfort food like theirs at the unbeatable prices they offered. Try finding a good rootbeer float now, and see how much it’d set you back.
Best Known For: Gorgonzola and Mushroom Burgers
Fairly new, and nowhere near as nostalgia-inducing as the other seven in this list, Boulevard Diner ranks so high because it’s a favorite among QC residents, hailing it as the best burger in QC, if not the entirety of Metro Manila. Just ask any food blogger, and they’re likely to tell you how great the food is in that little nook along Xavierville Avenue. Unfortunately, a couple of years in, the place closed down already, never to be heard from again. Or so we think.
Best Known For: Chicken All You Can
Popeye’s Chicken had some of the tastiest chicken you can ever hope for, in classic and New Orleans spicy style. What really made this place stand out was for a long time, they offered an eat-all-you-can promo for their chicken, and it really was worth it.
You miss them. We miss them. But tomorrow, we’re going to make sure you can find the next best thing for the food craving we probably incited within you just now.
