The shuttered KFC at Herndon and Spruce avenues in North Fresno is getting new life as a 24-hour taco shop. Victoria's Mexican Food, a San Diego-based chain known for carne asada fries, super nachos and breakfast burritos, is opening its first Fresno-area location inside the former fast-food building, with plans to launch in early September.
The building closed for good last fall, according to The Fresno Bee, which first reported the coming taco shop. Victoria's Mexican Food representative Mago Espinoza told the paper the new spot will operate as a full 24/7 fast-food taco shop, complete with a drive-thru already built into the site. The company has modified the location's equipment and remodeled the interior to fit its menu, with seating planned both inside and outside.
A Familiar Building, A New Purpose
The building itself has an unusual backstory. It was constructed in 2022 as KFC's first digital-forward prototype store in California, engineered specifically for mobile ordering and rapid drive-thru turnaround, according to The Business Journal. That streamlined layout is now being repurposed for Victoria's round-the-clock service model instead.
The Herndon and Spruce closure wasn't an isolated event. It was part of a broader pullback by franchisee JEM Management, which shut down multiple KFC outlets across the Fresno area between 2025 and 2026 as fast-food operators in the Central Valley faced mounting pressure from rising labor costs and shifting consumer habits, per GV Wire's regional reporting on the trend.
Wage Law Reshaping the Fast-Food Map
That pressure traces back to Assembly Bill 1228, which took effect in April 2024 and required fast-food chains with 60 or more national locations to pay workers at least $20 an hour, according to the California Department of Industrial Relations. The law raised fast-food minimum wages by 25% virtually overnight and set an exempt manager salary floor of $83,200. By January 2026, the state's standard minimum wage had climbed to $16.90 an hour, leaving a $3.10 hourly gap between general employers and the major chains still bound by the higher fast-food wage floor, the department notes.
Research has tied those cost pressures to real job losses. A Pepperdine University study using state employment data found California's 25% wage hike was associated with a 3% drop in fast-food sector jobs statewide even as national fast-food employment grew 0.8%, according to figures cited on Wikipedia. Separately, an analysis from the National Bureau of Economic Research estimated the $20 wage law cost roughly 18,000 fast-food jobs statewide, even as it boosted weekly pay for remaining workers by 13%, GV Wire reported.
Victoria's Mexican Food, notably, is not subject to the same $20 wage floor as the national chains driving those closures, since it operates independently and on a smaller footprint. The Fresno location is expected to employ around 15 workers.
What's on the Menu
Victoria's Mexican Food is owned by Santos de la Torre, whose family has been in the food industry since the early 1990s, according to The Fresno Bee. The company currently runs three locations in the San Diego area and one in Merced, at 1060 W. 16th St., which operates as a 24-hour drive-thru and will serve as the operational template for the Fresno store. The Merced location earned a satisfactory rating from Merced County Environmental Health inspectors in a November 2023 review.
The Fresno menu will be adapted from the Merced location and will lean on popular items including carne asada fries, tacos, tortas, enchiladas, chile rellenos and ceviche. One standout offering is the surf-and-turf burrito, packed with shrimp, carne asada, fries, chipotle, cheese and salsa mexicana. Espinoza said the company plans to keep the menu simplified at launch, though it may expand based on customer demand.
Carne asada fries themselves carry a distinct San Diego pedigree. The dish, which swaps traditional tortilla chips for french fries, is widely credited to Lolita's Mexican Food in the city's Chicano taco shop scene during the late 1990s, according to background compiled by Remezcla, and it spread rapidly across Southern California before making its way inland.
Not to Be Confused With a Different Fresno Restaurant
Victoria's Mexican Food has no connection to the existing Victoria's Mexican Food restaurant on Jensen Avenue in southeast Fresno, which has a different owner and operates independently. The Fresno Bee's report is explicit that the two are separate businesses despite sharing a name. The De La Torre family's operations also include El Huarache Taqueria in Merced.
The chain previously had a location in Visalia that closed in 2025, though the Fresno expansion suggests the company is still betting on growth in the San Joaquin Valley. Espinoza said the move to Fresno is meant to bring the chain's flavor to a new city, joining a North Fresno dining scene that already includes some of the busiest retail activity in the region along the Herndon Avenue corridor, near shopping centers like Villaggio and River Park.
The Fresno location has also received new exterior paint as part of the buildout, a cosmetic touch on top of the interior remodel and drive-thru upgrades. If the early September timeline holds, the 24-hour taco shop will mark Victoria's Mexican Food's first foray into the greater Fresno market.
