Taco Bell drive-thru planned for Medford's Sunshine Square

A new Taco Bell drive-thru restaurant is planned for the Sunshine Square shopping center in Medford, according to town records.

The Taco Bell, which will be at 700 Sills Rd., will take the place of a former Chase bank at the shopping center, which currently has tenants IHOP, Stop & Shop and Friendly’s, among others. The Brookhaven Town Board is scheduled to hold a public hearing on the project on Thursday, according to the municipality’s website.

The fast-food chain is seeking exterior lighting and sign height variances for its planned drive-thru, according to town documents.

“Once again we are excited to welcome another well-known business in the food industry to the community, and wish them tremendous success at this new location,” Town Councilman Michael A. Loguercio Jr. said in a statement. Town officials did not say when the restaurant would open. 

Officials with Taco Bell did not respond to requests for comment.

Taco Bell has 46 locations on Long Island, according to the company's online location tracker, and more than 8,000 across the country, according to data company ScrapHero. 

Fast-food restaurants like Taco Bell — referred to as quick-service restaurants in the food industry — have seen waning customer interest in recent years. Much of that is due to inflation making chains less competitive on price, said Rich Shank, senior principal and vice president of innovation at Technomic, a Chicago-based restaurant industry analysis and research firm.

“Early in the year consumers were exhausted with [quick service restaurant] pricing and that deals were not moving the needle,” Shank said in an email. “Traffic in December was -3.6% systemwide at the largest [quick service restaurants] and February was even lower -4.8%.”

However, chains like Taco Bell and McDonald’s have more recently found pricing models that are working, Shank said.

“Many have retooled their pricing proposition to provide tiered value programs. Taco Bell is at the center of this with their $5, $7 and $9 Cravings boxes,” he said.

Companies like McDonald’s have also gained some traction among customers with their Extra Value Meals and similarly tiered value combos.

“These new tiered value programs appear to be putting a lot of pressure on fast-casual brands like Chipotle, who are also experiencing pressure from casual-dining brands whose price points aren’t much higher than fast-casual pricing,” Shank said.