This vacant Wichita Taco Bell building may be getting a new restaurant tenant
The restaurant building at 3725 E. Harry that housed Taco Bell for 40 years — until it moved across the street to the former Hardee’s building at 3216 E. Harry a year ago — may be getting a new restaurant tenant.
A recently filed building permit says that the space, which sits across the street from Ascension Via Christi St. Joseph hospital, will be turned into a Pizza Hut restaurant. Wichita-based Fugate Enterprises — which owns many Taco Bells and Pizza Hut restaurants across the region — owned the Taco Bell that moved last year.
Multiple messages left with Fugate Enterprises about the move over the past several weeks have gone unreturned.
The permit says that it would cost $150,000 to turn the Taco Bell building into a Pizza Hut. The building’s footprint would remain the same, the permit says, but an exterior walk-in cooler would be added. Inside, there would be minor demo work, including the addition of a few new interior walls, new flooring and new finishes on the ceiling. Outside work would include exterior repairs, new paint and new signage.
The building originally was constructed in 1985 to house the Taco Bell, which opened in August of that year. Fugate moved the restaurant last year to the vacant Hardee’s building, Ryan Wasinger of Fugate Enterprises said at the time, because the corner spot gave it more visibility.
The Hardee’s building had been vacant since 2023, when the chain suddenly closed all of its restaurants in Wichita and Derby.
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