Striking gold

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This article was published 02/01/2026 (205 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Before we begin, John Tadeo wants to make it abundantly clear that Popoy’s, the tag he and his girlfriend Patricia Santiago settled on for their Filipino-style fried-chicken biz, isn’t a play on an international fried-chicken chain that bears the name of a certain, spinach-loving sailor-man.

When Tadeo was a youngster growing up in the Philippines, his paternal grandmother never called him anything but Popoy, a derivative of Popo, which is Tagalog for little boy or child. His parents continue to address him by that term of affection to this day, so last winter, when he and Santiago were tossing around potential names for their fledgling enterprise, they agreed Popoy’s Golden Chicken had a better ring to it than John’s or Patricia’s.

“I guess if somebody associated with Popeyes (Louisiana Kitchen) ever tells us we can’t call ourselves (Popoy’s), we’d probably just change it to Poy’s,” Tadeo says, standing next to Santiago in the commercial kitchen at Riverview Community Centre, where they accept pickup orders on a regular basis, usually every other weekend.

“But since Popoy is my name, I’m not sure what argument they’d have.”

Tadeo, 30, and Santiago, 29, met four years ago. They quickly discovered they had a number of things in common. Both of them were born in Manila, and both moved to Winnipeg when they were in their early teens.

“Where we were living in Manila was a bit of Third World conditions and because my parents desired a better life for me and my three siblings, they were overjoyed when my dad’s university friend said he would sponsor us,” Santiago says, recalling it was January of 2011 — “there was snow everywhere and the temperature was absolutely shocking” — when they arrived.

Tadeo has a similar story. His parents wanted their only child to have opportunities that wouldn’t be available if they remained in the Philippines. They jumped at the chance to move to Canada, when in 2010 a family member who had already settled in Winnipeg offered his assistance.

Tadeo, a Shaftesbury High School alumnus, studied kinesiology and recreational management at the University of Manitoba — he’s currently employed full-time as a recreational therapist — but cooking has always been his first love. He worked at a series of restaurants while attending university, including Stella’s and Prairie Ink. That was when he wasn’t whipping up Filipino favourites such as adobo, pansit and kare kare for his mom and dad.

If he had to pick a dish he’s best at, though, it would be fried chicken, he says, mentioning he learned his technique first from observing his grandmother and later from studying master chefs on the Food Network Canada. “I don’t mean to be boastful but whenever I made (fried chicken) for my friends, they’d be like, ‘John, this is better than the established joints.’” (It would appear the way to a woman’s heart is through her stomach. On their first date, Tadeo wooed Santiago with a plate of drumsticks.)

Last January, Santiago — who studied accounting at the University of Winnipeg and is currently in the final stages of becoming a CPA — and Tadeo celebrated their third anniversary in Cancun, Mexico. They’d previously discussed establishing some sort of side gig as a means to repay their parents for all they had done for them. During their trip, they made the decision to finally take the plunge, with fried chicken as the star attraction.

“I’d never really measured anything before — it was always a pinch of this and a dash of that — but because we’d now need everything to be consistent, I spent a few weeks writing things down, plus preparing for the food handler’s course,” Tadeo says.

They officially launched Popoy’s in March 2025 by taking pre-orders via their Instagram page. They’ve since developed a loyal following, thanks in part to collaborations they’ve entered into with other food vendors. Last summer, for instance, they partnered with the Winnipeg food truck Wacky Waffles for the Great Chicken & Waffles Chowdown, a contest staged at Tyndall Park Community Centre that required participants to ingest 12 waffles and one kilogram of fried chicken as quickly as possible.

Standing over a deep fryer bubbling with hot oil, Tadeo goes through his process. First he seasons the chicken — for now, legs and thighs only — with sea salt being his not-so-secret ingredient. He then dredges the individual pieces in flour, before dropping them into the fryer. He removes the chicken once it’s fully cooked, but ahead of packaging individual orders, he refries each piece for another minute or so, to ensure that it’s doubly-crispy.

On the last Saturday before Christmas, 24 hours after the second of two Alberta clippers hit the city on consecutive days, Clyde Guamos had made the 35-minute drive from his home in north Winnipeg to Riverview Community Centre on Ashland Avenue. The 22-year-old has been following Tadeo and Santiago’s exploits on Instagram since last summer and wasn’t about to let treacherous road conditions and freezing temperatures get in the way of what he laughingly refers to as his bi-weekly fix.

“At first, all they were offering was chicken and gravy, but now they make other things like fried pork belly and baked mac-and-cheese, which are excellent, too,” Guamos says, diving into a two-piece meal served with java rice, while he waits for a separate five-piece order to be readied.

“No offence to the established chicken joints, but what I find is that their chicken doesn’t stay crispy if I’m picking up. Usually it’s starting to get soggy by the time I get home,” he says between bites. “I do snow removal for a living and still have 14 stops to go, but I know this (points to just-arrived box of chicken) will still be crispy when I’m done for the day… if it lasts that long.”

Tadeo and Santiago presently offer three flavours of chicken — original, hot honey and a new concoction they’ve dubbed “everything bagel.” For the latter, they coat deep-fried pieces of chicken with a made-from-scratch cheese sauce before adding the same sort of seasonings you’d expect to find on an everything-bagel.

“When it comes to food, it’s hard to come up with something new, but I’ve looked and looked and haven’t seen another place that does it,” Tadeo says, crediting newly opened Forge Bagel Co. on St. Anne’s Road for giving him the idea.

While it’s true they both have full-time careers outside of Popoy’s, they are dreaming of the day when fried chicken might be their primary occupation. Santiago says they would be lying if they said they haven’t been scouting locations for a permanent home, one that might lead to something even bigger, further down the road.

“I’m sure Jollibee started off with one location and look at them now,” Tadeo says, adjusting his Popoy’s baseball cap, the crown of which boasts their colourful, red-yellow-and-blue logo. “Who knows? Maybe it will be the same for us, one day.”

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