TACLOBAN CITY—The fast food chain McDonald’s reopened its branch in Tacloban City last Thursday, 11 months after typhoon Yolanda destroyed its building and equipment, taking some P50 million worth of property, last November.
McDonald’s put up the new store in the same site where the branch used to stand, a few meters away from the coast.
The new store has “the same size and same site as the previous one,” said McDonald’s Philippines president and chief executive officer Kenneth Yang.
McDonald’s Tacloban is a 500-square-meter space with a seating capacity of 250. It is a franchise held by a local businesswoman, Caroline Andrade, and had been operating for 12 years until Yolanda halted its operations for close to a year.
Just across the store, rival Jollibee is also in the process of renovating its store.
Yang said it is the franchisee that shouldered the cost of the reconstruction and reopening, which he estimated at P50 million.
McDonald’s Tacloban is currently run by 100 people, 60 to 70 percent of whom were employees of the branch as the time of the typhoon. Some of the previous employees are still in McDonald’s but were reassigned to Cebu’s branches, Yang said.
Day care center
Also last Thursday, the Ronald McDonald House Charities opened in Tacloban the McDo Bahay Bulilit, a day care center open to underprivileged children six years old and below. The P2-million facility will be managed by the Department of Social Welfare and Development.
Restaurants, fast food chains, malls, and other commercial establishments in the city have already resumed operations. Locals said some started to reopen as early as last January.
For McDonald’s, Yang said there are no immediate plans yet to open a second McDonald’s in Tacloban. But by the end of this year, the chain will add 30 more stores on top of the existing 435 branches.
In Cebu, McDonald’s has 25 branches. It will be opening one in Carcar City within the month. Early this month, McDonald’s Moalboal, in the south of Cebu, also opened.
When Yolanda (known abroad as Haiyan) struck the Visayas last Nov. 8, 2013, it left more than 6,200 dead and damaged close to P40 billion worth of public infrastructure and agricultural crops.
Published in the Sun.Star Cebu newspaper on October 18, 2014.
