By the Editors of PillartoPost.org--There are restaurants with an ocean view. Then there is the Taco Bell Cantina in Pacifica, California, where the Pacific Ocean appears to have been hired as the entertainment. This place is a keeper and easy parking, too. You'll find it next to Pacifica State Beach (Linda Mar to locals) at 5200 Coast Highway, about 15 miles south of San Francisco.
Order a taco, step onto the deck and the entire California coast seems to open before you: surfers paddling beyond the breakers, gulls working the shoreline and foamy white water rolling along the sand.
The scenery alone deserves linen tablecloths, an ambitious wine list and a maître d’ named Jean-Luc, Instead, go for the Crunchwrap Supreme then take in the view. This place isn't a culinary adventure. Nobody needs a culinary introduction to Taco Bell. But what dazzles is location, location, location.
Enjoy the dietary staple that got you through college outside on the deck that has a Pacific Ocean view from here to Hawail.
But there's more. Add a cold beer or margarita from the Cantina bar and suddenly the experience feels suspiciously like a vacation. The building has occupied this remarkable patch of coastline since it opened as an A&W restaurant in 1972.
Taco Bell took over in 1985, inheriting a location that would be virtually impossible to duplicate under today’s coastal-development rules.
Large windows preserve the view when Pacifica’s famous fog or chill makes the indoor fireplace especially appealing. On a clear afternoon, the deck provides front-row seating to spot surfers and an occasional glimpse of migrating whales.
Holy cow, even the whales are leaving Frisco. We digress.
Of, course, it's Taco Bell.
Despite the view don't come searching for handmade tortillas, regional Mexican cooking or a chef’s interpretation of mole poblano.
Come for familiar Taco Bell fare served in a setting so spectacular that it makes the ordinary seem wonderfully improbable. The Pacifica Taco Bell Cantina proves that ambience does not always arrive with a reservation and a three-figure dinner tab.
Sometimes good times arrive wrapped in paper, accompanied by hot-sauce packets and served with the Pacific and those brilliant sunsets.
Yes, we repeat, the menu is Taco Bell. The dining room is California. And, if you're driving north the money you save dining at Taco Bell might be enough to pay the toll on the Golden Gate Bridge (The view earns five bells.
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