For the time being, the South Coast is without at least two of its popular Taco Bell stores.
The store at 3771 State St. in Santa Barbara is gone forever, leaving to make way for a Dunkin’ Donuts at the site.
But Goleta residents need not worry — their Taco Bell on North Fairview Avenue will return, with more bite than ever.
Construction crews this week demolished the restaurant at 140 N. Fairview Ave., leaving it a pile of wood and rubble. The Taco Bell sign, however, remains erect.
The company is replacing the dated building with a modern, standard Taco Bell design.
The building will reach be 18-feet high and have 15 parking spaces, instead of the 18 that used to be there.
In one of the most significant changes, Taco Bell plans to remove its existing angled parking and replace it with perpendicular parking to allow for two-way traffic.
Right now, because the cars are parked at an angle when motorists pull in from Fairview Avenue, there is an illusion of a one-way entrance, when the entrance actually doubles as an exit.
That corner of Fairview Avenue and Calle Real has a lot going on with its restaurants.
Rusty’s Pizza on Calle Real recently moved from west of Fairview to the east, into a new, majestic building near Walgreens.
The Fig Grill, popular when it used the Fresco Cafe name, went out of business a few months ago.
— Noozhawk staff writer Joshua Molina can be reached at jmolina@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.
