R TACO IS NOW ‘RUSTY TACO’; BEAVERCREEK EATERY NEARS
Chain returns to its Rusty Taco name and prepares for Beavercreek.
R Taco, which opened its first Dayton-area franchise restaurant in March 2017, has a new name and a second Dayton-area location that is projected to open in less than a month across from the Mall at Fairfield Commons in Beavercreek.
Its new name is actually its original name: Rusty Taco, named after its founder, Russell “Rusty” Fenton, who opened the first Rusty Taco in the Dallas area in 2010. Fenton died in 2014, and the following year, the chain shortened its name to R Taco, until deciding a few weeks ago to revert back to the original name to honor its founder.
The Dallas-based street-taco chain, now part of the national restaurant company Inspire Brands, operates 27 restaurants in six states.
For the R Taco on Brown Street near the University of Dayton, the transition to the new name should be completed in the next two weeks, according to John Slaughenhaupt, spokesman for the Ohio franchisee of R Taco.
David Fisher and Eric Lundgren are Slaughenhaupt’s partners in the Rusty Taco franchise venture, which is gearing up to open in the former Caddy’s Tap House space off of North Fairfield Road near I-675 and is looking to expand the Rusty Taco footprint in the Columbus and Cincinnati areas in addition to Dayton.
The new Beavercreek restaurant should open on or around Nov. 12, Slaughenhaupt said. It will seat about 75 inside and another 50 on its patio. Franchise owners are in the process of hiring about 65 employees. Walk-in applications are being accepted from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Saturday at the restaurant at 2760 Towne Drive, according to a banner hung adjacent to the entrance.
The Cadillac Jacks location at the Beavercreek site transformed into Caddy’s Tap House in September 2014. It shut its doors in May 2018. Contact this reporter at 937-2257355 or email Mark.Fisher@coxinc. com.