Walls are now standing at a new Taco Bell construction site tucked behind the Burger King at the north entrance to Gateway Plaza on Waverly Avenue in Patchogue, marking the hamlet's second location of the fast-food chain. Crews have been working at the site this week, framing out a building on a lot that was cleared earlier in the process.
The project, first documented by Greater Long Island, sits on a 1.0-acre commercial parcel at 500 Waverly Avenue, according to property records from Realmo. That puts a second drive-thru restaurant on the same lot as the existing Burger King, effectively creating a small fast-food hub at Gateway Plaza's entrance. No completion or opening date has been announced for the new store, and the outlet says it plans to keep following the project as it progresses.
Once open, this location will give Patchogue residents a second Taco Bell option beyond the chain's existing store at 174 Medford Avenue, which offers drive-thru service, breakfast, delivery, and late-night hours until 4 or 5 a.m., according to Taco Bell's own store listings. Progress photos of the framing work were credited to Jayden Meadows in the original report.
A Companion Project Taking Shape in Medford
The Waverly Avenue build is not happening in isolation. It follows a similar Taco Bell project underway at the north end of Sunshine Square in Medford, which the outlet's report notes is further along in construction than the Patchogue site. That Medford project, located at 700 Sills Road, involves replacing a vacant former Chase Bank building with a 2,118-square-foot restaurant featuring a drive-thru and outdoor seating, according to reporting from Greater Long Island. Construction there was estimated to cost roughly $1.5 million and take about four months once approved by municipal authorities.
Getting the Medford project to that point required more than just a construction crew. The applicant sought special permits for major restaurant operations and outdoor seating, along with Town of Brookhaven zoning variances covering setback distance, wall sign height, and sign dimensions, per filings before the Town of Brookhaven Zoning Board of Appeals. Relief was needed in part because the proposed building offered a 76.6-foot front yard setback from Station Road instead of the required 100 feet, town records show.
Town Records Show a Formal Approval Trail for Patchogue
The Patchogue site has gone through its own municipal review. Town of Brookhaven records show the town reviewed land-use application 2024-003 for the proposed Taco Bell with a drive-thru and accepted restrictive covenants for the site in November 2025, according to filings on the Town of Brookhaven's CivicClerk portal. Commercial drive-thru developments in Brookhaven generally require special permits and town board approval before builders can break ground, which explains the roughly year-long gap between paperwork and the current framing work.
Part of a Broader Fast-Food Building Boom on Long Island
These two Patchogue-area projects fit into a wider pattern of quick-service restaurant expansion across the Town of Brookhaven and Long Island more broadly. Taco Bell already operates 46 locations across Long Island as of late 2025, according to company store-tracking data cited by Newsday, including nearby stores in Farmingville, Ronkonkoma, Selden, and Coram. That density reflects how fast-food chains tend to site stores along major arterial routes every few miles across Brookhaven, the largest town by land area in New York State.
The expansion is happening even as industry data shows softer demand nationally. Customer traffic across major U.S. quick-service restaurants fell 3.6% in December 2024 and 4.8% in February 2025 due to consumer price sensitivity, according to research firm Technomic cited by the same Newsday report. Despite that softness, major chains have kept adding modernized drive-thru units in high-density suburban corridors like Waverly Avenue and Sills Road.
The turnover extends beyond Taco Bell. In Medford, land was also cleared this summer to replace a former Burger King on Sills Road with a new 4,308-square-foot McDonald's featuring its own drive-thru, Greater Long Island reported. Between the Waverly Avenue and Sunshine Square builds and the Sills Road McDonald's project, the Patchogue-Medford corridor is seeing simultaneous quick-service restaurant construction and replacement work on multiple fronts. No opening date has been set for the Waverly Avenue Taco Bell, and further updates are expected once one is announced.
