Jeepney Restaurant takes patrons on flavourful ride

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This article was published 23/05/2014 (4139 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The owners of a new West End restaurant named their establishment after a familiar form of transportation from their homeland.

Jeepney Restaurant (714 Sargent Ave.) opened its doors on Feb. 10 this year where The Green Chilli, an Indian restaurant, used to be. The now Filipino eatery is owned by Nelson Olegario, Nelson Varias, and Albert Lalu.

Holding a miniature version of a jeepney, Olegario and Varias said a jeepney is similar to a jeep but with more capacity.

“The back is where all the passengers go,” Varias said, gesturing to the back end of the toy.
Olegario explained a jeepney can hold as much as 20 people. The owners said naming the restaurant after the mode of transportation gives Filipino people a sense of nostalgia, and that it’s easily identified as a Filipino restaurant.

Olegario said he and his two business partners have been wanting to open a restaurant for a year. When they found this location, they grabbed it because they liked the rent and the community was largely Filipino. However, they are still on the lookout for a bigger place to open a second location because weekends are incredibly busy.

“We’ll take a look in six months to a year,” Olegario said. “It depends if (the restaurant) is successful.”

Another issue the current location occasionally faces is the lack of parking.

“Some people are complaining about parking. Maybe in a few more months, we’ll look for a nice place with parking, that’s more comfortable for customers,” Olegario said.

Although Jeepney Restaurant offers predominantly Filipino cuisine, Varias and Olegario have incorporated other cultural influences into their menu, and that’s partly due to the fact that they also work in the Delta Hotel kitchen, which is their full-time job.

“Both of us, we do mornings until 2:30 p.m. (at Jeepney),” Varias said. “Then we go to our full-time job.”

Their third business partner, Lalu, then takes over Jeepney Restaurant from about 2 p.m. until closing time at 9 p.m.

“Our menu is a mix of what we learned at home and also from our work,” Olegario said. “Presentation is what we learned from the hotel where we work.”

Some of the traditional Filipino items on their menu include kare-kare, an oxtail conconction with peanut sauce, and tapa, a Filipino breakfast that includes a thin slice of beef, fried egg, and garlic rice.

For more information about Jeepney Restaurant, visit their Facebook page, “Jeepney Restaurant Winnipeg”.

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