Longtime family business brings first fast-food restaurant to Richland neighborhood

A new Taco Ball fast-food Mexican restaurant recently opened in at 2293 Gateway Avenue in Richland.

Bob Brawdy bbrawdy@tricityherald.com

By Tri-City Herald staff Updated December 23, 2025 3:23 PM

Taco Bell is the first fast-food chain to open a restaurant in Richland’s Badger South neighborhood. Eugene, Ore.-based Weber Enterprises, a third-generation, family-owned business with 44 Taco Bells in Washington and Oregon, confirmed its newest store opened Dec. 19.

The new Taco Bell is at 2293 Gateway Ave., near the roundabout at Dallas Road and Trowbridge. Lindsay Johnston, director of development for Weber, said the company didn’t set out to be the first quick service restaurant at Badger South. But it is thrilled to be part of the emerging community, she said.

The spot is off I-82 at Exit 104 in south Richland. Badger South is the fifth Tri-Cities Taco Bell for the Weber family and the eighth in the market when locations operated by other franchisees are included. 20 years in Tri-Cities Johnston, whose grandparents began the business in 1968, started with the family firm when she was 14.

“I am so grateful for the opportunities it provided us,” she told the Tri-City Herald. The Weber family expanded to the Tri-Cities in 2005 when it bought six Taco Bells in Eastern Washington from the parent corporation.

The deal included two restaurants in the Tri-Cities. Since then, it has expanded its footprint by developing the Taco Bell/Long John Silvers in the Queensgate area in 2007 and the Taco Bell in Kennewick’s Southridge area in 2018. The new location is nearly 2,300-square-feet and cost about $450,000 to construct. DA Bentley Construction LLC was the contractor and EA Architecture & Design Inc. was the architect, according to building permit data.

In addition to the new Richland restaurant, Weber/Columbia Bells is preparing to open a new location in Phoenix, Ore., and is working to complete a Taco Bell conversion at a restaurant it purchased in Seaside, Ore. Now hiring Johnston said the Badger South restaurant employs 17 and is hiring. Go to weberacobells.com for more information.

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