Drive around Fresno these days and you might notice something strange about the old fast-food buildings that used to sit empty for months: they're not empty anymore, and they're not slinging burgers. From a former Carl's Jr. on East Shaw Avenue to a onetime Wendy's downtown, a wave of Mexican restaurants is taking over the bones of shuttered chain outlets across the city.
The trend comes down to simple economics and strong local demand, according to commercial real estate broker Michael Arfsten, a partner at Retail California who handles the sale of commercial buildings across the Central Valley. Arfsten told the Fresno Bee that for each fast-food restaurant space that comes to market, he receives four to five inquiries, most from people looking to convert it into a Mexican restaurant. High demand for Latino cuisine in Fresno, where more than half of the city's 555,000-plus residents identify as Hispanic or Latino according to the U.S. Census Bureau, is fueling the shift.
The appeal isn't just cultural, it's financial. Arfsten said a second-generation restaurant space costs far less for a new operator than starting from a blank shell, since many former fast-food buildings still come with walk-in freezers, refrigerators, plumbing, grease interceptors and other equipment already in place. Drive-through lanes and setups left behind by the previous tenant can add even more savings, the outlet's reporting notes.
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Jonathon Ortiz, an associate at ASU Commercial, said those savings do not stop at the budget line. Per the same report, Ortiz said reusing an existing restaurant space also saves time, since brand-new permits, including those needed for new drive-through lanes, can be extremely costly and tack months onto a restaurant's opening timeline. Skipping that process by moving into a building that already has the plumbing and equipment can get an operator open months sooner.
That calculus is already playing out across the city. Tacos la Villa opened at 1052 East Shaw Avenue in a building that previously housed a Carl's Jr., one of two Tacos la Villa locations the company has opened, with the other in Visalia. A few miles away, Victoria's Mexican Food is now serving customers at 4145 East Jensen Avenue, in a space that used to be a KFC.
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Downtown, Aliberto's Jr. Mexican Food opened at 1140 C Street in what was formerly a Wendy's, according to the Fresno Bee's reporting. The location, a franchise with local owners, became the second Aliberto's to open in Fresno after leasing the former Wendy's building; it celebrated its grand opening on June 12 with discounts running all day, according to a separate Fresno Bee report.
Just down the street from that same former Wendy's, the old KFC building on C Street tells a slightly different story. A local family bought that property and has been converting it into Smashville Burgers & Chicken, which aimed to open in mid-June or early July pending city approval and planned to keep using the existing drive-through, the Fresno Bee reported. Not every reused fast-food shell in Fresno is becoming a taqueria, but the pattern of operators inheriting drive-throughs and kitchens instead of building new ones holds either way.
More Conversions in the Pipeline
Tacos el Franc, which traces its roots to Tijuana, is opening at 110 East Shaw Avenue, in a spot formerly occupied by Heroes Comics. Elsewhere in the city, El Taqueria Premio Mayor is relocating its McKinley Avenue location to the corner of First and McKinley avenues, the former home of a Popeyes, according to YourCentralValley.com. The outlet reported that the new space will offer a bigger kitchen, more parking and better visibility than the restaurant's previous location.
For operators eyeing a similar move, the savings on equipment and build-out don't exempt them from local rules. Anyone selling or giving away food to the public must still obtain a Permit to Operate from the Fresno County Department of Public Health, and the City of Fresno requires applicants to file for building permits detailing their scope of work before any covered construction begins. Those steps remain part of the process even when a kitchen, freezer and drive-through are already sitting there waiting to be used.
