Critic's Review
I've been drawn in typo the Cheddar Chalupa and Nacho Fries commercials, and guess what? Neither item is available at this location! But I hadn't been down to the beach in a while so I thought I'd see what they'd done with the old Sonic digs.
Even though they've been open a few weeks, they're still under construction. No sign. A real strong addition to the dilapidated Beach Place.
Inside, they've removed the bar, which was they entire point of the place. The idea behind having fast food at this location is that they qualify for a liquor license; one of the stupidities of Florida that they refuse to fix.
They have a counter with a girl who does just about nothing; you order via a kiosk which is essentially a clone of their web ordering system. Seems convenient, but there's no receipt. If you have an account they'll email it to you, but I wasn't asked about a receipt. They also can't print out a receipt if you ask for one, because I did and they couldn't.
They have iced tea listed as a product on their web site, but in the kiosk it's just a "soft drink". 2.99 for a large and 2.69 for a medium. This is ridiculous; $2.00 taco and $3 for a soda? I got the medium and got some refills.
No beeper here. You enter your name (or some random name of your choice) and wait for them to call out the name.
The only redeeming quality of the place is the view.
Not much going on at the beach in October, particularly considering all of the construction and detours.
The tacos took 9 minutes to make for some reason.
One Taco Supreme and one chicken taco. Not exactly a gourmet lunch. It's amazing how ordinary they look when not stuffed into a bag.
Compare how this looks (and the amount of filling) compared to what you see in ads and on TV.
I thought I'd ordered sour cream for the chicken taco, but I didn't have a receipt so I couldn't complain that they forgot it. Maybe I didn't order it.
Tasty fast food tacos. This stuff tastes better at 2am.
Conclusion
If Sonic couldn't make it here with their better, more interesting food, Taco Bell has no chance. At lunchtime, I didn't even see how to order a drink; pushing drinks is how you pay rent in this town, and even with $3 sodas they're not going to have enough customers to make rent. This food doesn't inspire more than a cheap beer; this place will get the budget families who don't want to take their small children to Hooters.