Demand overwhelms new Naugles, forcing temporary closure

After overwhelming success in its first week since being reincarnated with a single location in Fountain Valley following a 20-year absence, Naugles has closed its doors again, at least until it figures out how to meet the demand from nostalgia-filled fans.

Owner Christian Ziebarth said the Mexican fast-food restaurant, which he said was intended to have a soft opening last week in an industrial park on Mount Langley Street, got much more attention than he had expected, resulting in long wait times for customers and a shortage of food that caused the business to close hours before the scheduled time on multiple days.

“We realized after a few days of it that nothing we were doing was keeping up with (the demand),” Ziebarth said in an email Monday. “The press blared it out as a grand opening when we were hoping to have a low-key soft opening. We expected to do a good, brisk business, but we didn’t know everyone on the planet would show up practically all at once.”

Ziebarth, a web developer and food blogger from Fountain Valley, said he’s thinking of creating a mobile application on which people can order online the day before so the restaurant can know how many orders there will be and “people won’t have to waste a trip again.”

Naugles was a popular chain in the 1970s and ‘80s that disappeared in 1995 after a merger with Del Taco seven years earlier. Ziebarth, a fan of Naugles’ food when he was growing up, won the rights this year to the Naugles trademark from Del Taco and opened the new location on Tuesday.

Ziebarth said the Fountain Valley Naugles could reopen this weekend. Updates will be posted on Naugles’ website, www.nauglestacos.com.