Naugles returns with its unassuming, yet tasty tacos

On a recent morning while sitting on a bench about a half-mile from his city’s pier, Huntington Beach resident David Lindsey had an unusual breakfast: a crunchy taco, comprised of the standard corn tortilla shell, stuffed with ground beef, shredded cheese and lettuce, topped with tomato.

The taco and three accompanying sauces came from Naugles, proudly dubbing itself “the SoCal original.”

Lindsey couldn’t help but remark how back in his younger days, he used to eat Naugles food while living in Salt Lake City, but only after the sun had set.

“This is the first time I’ve eaten it in the daytime,” he said.

How Lindsey, however, was able to bite his teeth once again into a storied but unassuming taco from Naugles started with a blogger.

Christian Ziebarth wanted a revival of the fast-food Mexican chain founded in 1970 by former Del Taco partner Dick Naugle. The chain had its heyday in the 1970s and 1980s, before it was gradually absorbed by Del Taco and disappeared from the taco landscape completely in 1995.

Using his restaurant review blog, Orange County Mexican Restaurants, he led the charge to restore Naugles and eventually was able to acquire the company’s trademark from Del Taco. The courts had determined that the Lake Forest-based company had effectively abandoned the brand, which allowed Ziebarth to scoop it up and start it anew.

Fast forward to August. Naugles opened a small test kitchen within a nondescript Fountain Valley industrial park off Ellis Avenue. What was supposed to be a quiet opening for a few fans to once again taste the nachos of their youth overwhelmed Naugles management to the extent that they ran out of food because so many people showed up.

But that wasn’t the end of it.

In the months afterward, the company regrouped and, in late May, quietly and quickly opened the first stand-alone revived Naugles restaurant along the Huntington City Beach boardwalk. It replaced a Wahoo’s Fish Taco.

“We want to bring back Naugles to full tilt,” said Dan Dvorak, chief marketing officer and a business partner.

“We’re sort of restoring what should have never been taken away,” added Ziebarth, who now serves as a partner and president

Naugles is at 21351 Pacific Coast Hwy., near Twin Dolphin Drive, in a building owned by the city and managed by Hilton’s Waterfront Beach Resort across the street. The resort’s association with Naugles even extends to its guests: They can order their fix of tacos, burgers and burritos through room service.

The Naugles team said they had only about three weeks to get the restaurant open after signing a lease in early May. They’re still in the soft-opening phase, after having fixed opening-weekend jitters like a non-functioning credit card machine.

“We didn’t have any time to test,” said CEO Josh Maxwell of those early days.

Early operational hiccups aside, company leaders hope the PCH restaurant will be the first of many. They won’t divulge where new Naugles will pop up, but they said they’re in negotiations for future locations, with a focus on Orange and Riverside counties.

Riverside, they noted, is where Naugles began, at the corner of Fourteenth Street and Brockton Avenue. A Del Taco is there now.

Naugles’ partners say nostalgia for the company is at a high, and that appears to be helping drive business to the beach.

“People talk about it,” Ziebarth said, “as though it were a place they went to weeks ago.”