Perhaps this won't mean much to our readers that are not in Southern California, but for us down here in the land of heat, droughts, illegals, and Hollywood liberals, the return of Naugles is great news.
My last memory of Naugles was in 1985, when on the way to the USS Chandler DDG-996 berthed down in San Diego, of which I was a crewmember, after a beach-going weekend with family in Corona, I grabbed a Strawberry Shake from the Naugles in Lake Elsinore. The strawberries in the shakes by Naugles were so numerous and beefy, that you had to toss the straw and lid and drink the shake in a shake-mustache-inducing style from the top of the cup. Otherwise, the chunks of strawberries would get stuck in the straw. The cup of beans with their red sauce and cheese on top, the tacos, the burgers, the burritos. . . it was all quite awesome.
My Navy career wound up keeping me away from the Inland Empire for the next few years, until I bought a home in Murrieta in 1989. By then, Naugles was gone, for the most part. The more than 200 franchises of the restaurant that had been birthed in Riverside were gone, merged into Del Taco in 1988, and within seven years, the last of the Naugles restaurants were gone. And as Del Taco lost its original pizzazz, removing the slice of tomato they used to put on top of their tostada, for example, the longing for Naugles increased for the nostalgic natives of the area. Naugles became a legend, in some ways, a lost remnant of a more glorious past when the quality of fast food in the Inland Empire was at its height.
Del Taco held on to the trademark of the name, a part of a woman's scorn against Don Naugle. Don took his recipes up north and resurrected Pup-N-Taco. The years passed. The Naugles location in Corona on Main Street is now a Persian Restaurant. A few other locations remain as Del Taco. The unique blend of tastes that Naugles offered, we thought, was lost to Southern California, forever.
Fans, however, can be pesky critters. One of the biggest fans of the lost tastes of Naugles has been a gentleman by the name of Christian Ziebarth, a web developer that has recreated the flavors through years of tinkering, holding Naugles food parties to test the flavors.
Ziebarth decided making the food for friends was not enough, so he leaped some legal hurdles, eventually taking his battle for the trademark to court, where he won. The judge determined the Naugles trademark had lapsed, and Del Taco had lost control of it. With that win, Ziebarth leaped into action, reviving Naugles at a new standalone spot in Fountain Valley.
Naugles is up and running at 18471 Mt. Langley in Fountain Valley, and though Ziebarth has indicated there will be only one location, I guarantee it won't be long before we see more than 200 Naugles locations in Southern California again.
The menu has been recreated, with the famous bean and cheese burritos, hard and soft-shelled tacos, cups of beans, tostadas, and so forth ready for you to order, and devour. I need to visit this new Naugles myself to see if he recreated the shakes the way they are supposed to be, too; you know, with the big chunks of strawberries.
It's a great story. An underdog story. And through Ziebarth's hard work, we all get to enjoy the tastes of Naugles, once again.
Sometimes, nostalgia pays off. In the case of Ziebarth, it also shows what one person can do, despite the odds, if he is willing to fight long enough, and hard enough.
-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
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