This architecturally beloved Taco Bell in the East Bay is shutting down

One of the last old-style Taco Bell buildings in the Bay Area is folding like its namesake food.

The Taco Bell at 3501 Mt. Diablo Blvd. in Lafayette is scheduled to celebrate its last day on Tuesday, Jan. 13, according to KTVU. It’s existed at the location since around 1968 by the city’s best guess, back when tacos reportedly cost about 25 cents.

Early Taco Bells featured a Mission-style design notable for arched windows and tile roofs, similar to the architecture lurking in historic neighborhoods of California cities. The very first restaurant that launched the chain – now estimated at 8,000-plus locations in the U.S. and more abroad – was built in 1962 in Downey, Calif., and had elements of this design style.

When that location closed, the company deemed the structure so worthy of preservation it physically moved the entire building to its Irvine headquarters.

These charming-looking huts of bargain burritos became imperiled when the company started embracing a more utilitarian, boxlike, some might say “soulless” architecture. American-roadside journalist Rolando Pujol explains in his column The Retrologist:

“Working with S&O Consultants of San Francisco, the parent company PepsiCo was repositioning Taco Bell so it would play better in parts of the country less familiar with or enamored by Mexican food.

“Taco Bell toned down its signage, featuring a colorful, simple bell. Stores would still get Mission-style buildings, but they were more subdued, softened by a ‘Mainstream Mansard’ roof and a plastic sign along the facade in place of the actual bell that was notched into earlier stores.”

The only other early Mission-style Taco Bell in the Bay Area is in Benicia, according to Pujol’s research. It is reportedly only one of six still in operation, with others in Southern California and Colorado.

That original inclusion of a metal bell at the Lafayette restaurant led to some classic small-town shenanigans.

“Long before fast food went digital and Taco Bells glowed with LED signs, the Lafayette location on Mt. Diablo Boulevard had a real bell — tucked in an arched niche above the front door. It wasn’t flashy, but it had charm. It was the kind of thing that begged for trouble, and eventually, trouble showed up,” writes John Kennett of the Lafayette Historical Association.

“Sometime in the late ’60s (or was it the late ’70s? Memory’s a little fuzzy), a group of Acalanes High School students decided the bell would make a perfect senior prank. Fueled by teenage bravado and probably too many bean burritos, they snuck out in the dead of night with a truck, some rope, and a half-baked plan,” Kennett continues.

“As the story goes, they managed to loosen the bolts — but the bell was heavier than expected. One version claims it crashed to the ground with a terrible clang. Another says they got it into the truck but panicked when a cop drove by and abandoned it in the bushes.”

When Kennett posted these recollections on Facebook, one commenter named Ted chimed in saying he thinks he spotted the bell in a friend’s backyard in the late ’70s. “The threaded rod at the top of the bell was plugged into the ground with the whole bell upside down. It looked like a planter until my friend told me what it was,” Ted recalled.

The company has not given a reason for the closure, and it’s uncertain what will replace the Taco Bell, according to KRON4.

But it will certainly be missed by some folks. “In an era of indistinguishable gray boxes, Taco Bell should be embracing what makes it unique instead of getting rid of it,” writes one commenter on the subreddit /LivingMas. Said another, simply: “One of the main ones of my youth. Damn.”