PROBABLY? Multiple Oakland Taco Bell Restaurant Shut Down Their Indoor Dining Rooms, Probably Due to Crime.

Four Oakland Taco Bell restaurants appear to have gone drive-thru only, though some only in the evening, in the latest hit to Oakland’s fast-food landscape.

It somehow made national news when the burger chain In-N-Out announced the closure of their Oakland location in January, citing “ongoing issues with crime” (its last day is March 24). The closure of a nearby Denny’s about a week later got similar outsized national coverage. Though it was less-noticed in early 2023 when the cult-hit chicken chain Raising Cane’s closed the dining room of their Oakland location, also blaming crime, and went drive-thru only.

So we’ll see whether the national press goes haywire over KRON4’s reports that a couple of Oakland Taco Bell locations have also closed their dining rooms, and gone to an exclusively drive-thru model. The above KRON4 segment, which shows one frustrated customer trying to walk through the drive-thru, notes the dining rooms were closed at Taco Bell locations at 3535 35th Avenue and 630 Hegenberger Road. (Though the website for the Hegenberger Road shows the dining room open until only 5 pm, so maybe it depends when you go there.)

And the dining room closures do appear to be related to crime. One employee told KRON4, “It’s closed because some people sometimes make trouble.”

I’d never thought of dining out as a high-trust experience until I saw restaurants trying to stay open in low-trust environments.