Taco Bell Trying to Move Onto Block That Already Has Two Taco Restaurants, Effectively Creating a Three-Headed Gastrointestinal Hydra
What you see above is the intersection of Lemmon Avenue and Throckmorton Street. You’ve probably passed it a million times on your way to Love Field, or when you need to make a u-turn because “Dammit, Alice, you and your yapping made me miss the goshdurn Einstein Bagels again.”
Cruising through the City Plan Commission documents earlier this week, I came across this monster:
REQUEST: An application for a Specific Use Permit for a restaurant with drive-in or drive-through service on property zoned a GR General Retail Subdistrict in Planned Development District No. 193, the Oak Lawn Special Purpose DistrictSUMMARY: The applicant intends to redevelop the site with a restaurant with drive-through service.
The applicant? The Taco Bell Corporation of America, which owns a 97-year-old home adjacent to the Taco Bueno. Like, so adjacent that Michael working this proposed Taco Bell drive-thru could stick his pimply face out of the window and have a conversation with Angela, who’s taking out the trash for Taco Bueno.
The site used to be Hadley and Harriet, an antique shop, but now it’s just a beautiful, century-old house on a street that has almost zero remaining beautiful, century-old houses. City planning staff recommended denial (no official reason stated, though “the health of nearby residents” probably came up), but the Plan Commission delayed the vote until June 21.
Just enough time to gird your bowels.
That Taco Bueno does not have drive-through, and Taco Cabana is on other side of street. I suspect both would survive a Taco Bell, but I hope we don’t find out and the old house stays.