[dropcap size=big]T[/dropcap]here are only four El Taco eateries left. The tiny restaurant chain, started by Taco Bell founder Glen Bell in 1956, shuttered one of its Downey locations over the weekend due to rising rents.
The popular pink adobe hut-like building on Firestone Boulevard sits on property that was sold in October 2016 for $1.127 million, according to public records. El Taco’s lease on the property ended this month. That’s when the property’s owner raised the rent, according to an El Taco employee.
An El Taco representative told the Downey Patriot that rent price tag skyrocketed to $11,000 a month in rent and $24,000 a year in property tax. “It’s crazy,” Alberto Vazquez told the Patriot, “You’d have to sell at least over $100,000 a month just to get even.”
Vazquez said the El Taco owners could not afford to pay.
Vazquez manages one of the four remaining locations. His restaurant in Downey on Florence Avenue is absorbing a lot of the business from the closure, he said. The other three El Tacos are in San Pedro, Orange and Anaheim.