Del Taco has closed its short-lived restaurant along Buford Drive in Buford. The restaurant, located at 3385 Buford Drive, in front of Sam's Club, opened in early 2020 and reportedly closed in recent days, according to a ToNeTo Atlanta reader in the area. The Buford outpost was one of several in metro Atlanta that were converted former Pollo Tropical restaurants.
The former East Cobb location later reopened as a Five Guys, whereas the former Roswell outpost recently debuted as 12 Lunar Eatery, a new sit-down Chinese restaurant. The Milton and Loganville restaurants remain vacant.
As for the now vacant Buford restaurant, there are no obvious replacement candidates, with Raising Cane's and Whataburger, both of whom would likely have been interested, having each already opened new restaurants along Buford Drive. ToNeTo Atlanta reported September 14 that both Chick-fil-A and Starbucks are planning additional locations in Buford but both are further down Buford Drive closer to 985 and further from existing locations near the Mall of Georgia.
Fellow quick-serve restaurant Jack in the Box purchased Del Taco in late 2021. The acquisition, worth a reported $585 million, closed in March 2022. According to the Del Taco website, there are currently 596 Del Taco restaurants across the country.
Following the closures, the company continues to operate twenty-three restaurants across the state including franchises in Snellville, Tucker, Douglasville, Lawrenceville, Woodstock and pairs of restaurants in Kennesaw and Smyrna.
Overall, Del Taco seems to perform best in rural and far OTP communities. According to a 2021 article from the Chattanooga Times Free Press, the Del Taco in Fort Oglethorpe, close to Chattanooga, was as of then "the most visited Del Taco location in the state of Georgia."
Are you surprised to see Del Taco close in Buford? What is your favorite Mexican-ish fast food eatery? What would you like to see replace Del Taco in Buford?
Please share your thoughts below.
20 comments:
This makes me worried for the ITP Tucker location. Honestly, after trying Del Taco I can’t see why someone would go to Taco Bell.
Nah Taco Bell better then del taco🤢
Del Taco is way better than Taco Bell. Hoping the two Smyrna locations remain open. They always seem to be busy
I prefer Del and Milton was on my regular lunch list when I worked in Alpharetta. Buford was the closest after all of the closings, but even they were stacked with weird hours and their dining room still wasn't opened as of recently.
Taco bell and del taco both have different strengths, but overall del taco seems better quality. For sure, their tacos are bigger and have more ingredients and the Tuesday and Thursday specials are great deals. This location is actually the first del taco I tried, but I've visited the Lawrenceville location subsequent times. It'll be interesting to see what they put there as this is the Sam's club I go to most often.
I like Del Taco better than Taco Bell, going back to my days of living in California. I worry about our Lawrenceville location as they are never busy. Decades back they shared a restaurant with Mrs Winner's in Suwanee.
It's not ITP.
The Loganville location is under construction to become a Chase bank.
Considering how inexpensive eating at a basic Mexican Restaurant can be I fail to see why someone would eat at either one of these places.
Far superior to Taco Bell. But they really need to step up their marketing and advertising. They don't have locations in the metro-area either.
Having lived in California and even Chicago, there is nothing to compare to, no matter how they try to fix it up. It just ain't happening!
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Higher prices but higher quality, IMHO, than other "TexMex" fast food chains, but vote with ur wallet. They have specials and value offerings that are very good but agree that their promotion and marketing appear non-existent; I would hope the remaining locations don't close.
Buford is metro Atlanta?
"Buford is Metro Atlanta"? Last I checked, Buford is still in Gwinnett County, which has been one of the "core" counties of Metro Atlanta for decades.
Part of the problem with Del Taco is that for those of us who remember the "other" Del Taco chain that was owned by W.R. Grace (Who in the early 1970s, bought the rights to Del Taco outside of California, Eugene, OR and Yuma, AZ.). It was a slightly different version of the chain, with some menu items, like burgers and fries, being left off the menu. The W.R. Grace version of Del Taco was sold to Taco Bell in the early 1990s and the OG Del Taco was able to reacquire the rights to the Del Taco name nationally. Many of the Del Taco locations Taco Bell got in the buyout of the W.R. Grace version of Del Taco were shuttered as they were close to a Taco Bell. Where I live on the southside of Atlanta, there is one of the few Del Tacos that was converted to a Taco Bell post-merger. When the OG Del Taco made their initial entry to the Atlanta market in late 1990s, it flopped because it wasn't entirely the same Del Taco we had lost several years earlier. This could be the same reason why they're struggling in their return to the market.
This is madness. I went on Saturday and they were closed. Somebody got some splaining to do. Taco Bell should have shut down 1 month after Del Taco opened. There is absolutely no comparison. Not even sure that Taco Bell has meat......
Yes
the dining room closed forever was the killer, i don’t want to eat tacos in my car and don’t want to eat cold ones at home after the drive thru. luckily for now lawrenceville is open and has dining room open. just do t understand why it still wasn’t open, i would guess horrid management maybe.
Good its disgusting!
Del Taco is 10 times BETTER than Taco Bell! These closings are due to a lack of training, of management and staff. Same thing for the other failed and low scoring food establishments - Popeyes, Mrs Winners, Whataburger, etc.
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