While one major burger chain celebrated a grand opening on Wednesday (it’s the really popular one with infamous drive-thru), several Fresno-area restaurants have announced closures (or already closed) in recent weeks. At least one will be heading to the Central Coast.
Here’s a look:
Noodle Q Home Style Fresh Noodles has closed its pan-Asian and sushi restaurant in an Ashlan Avenue shopping center just east of Fresno Street. The closure is temporary, per a handwritten sign posted on the front door.
In a message on social media last week, the restaurant apologized for the closure, which it called sudden and a surprise. “We share in your disappointment,” it wrote. “We’re unsure what the future holds for Noodle Q. Your kindness, memories and loyalty have meant the world to us.”
Noodle Q has been in the Ashlan Avenue location for a decade and was one of the most photographed restaurants in Fresno, according to Yelp’s calculations back in 2022.
Quesadilla Gorilla is losing two of its south-Valley restaurants.
Its Hanford restaurant is closing after five years in downtown (just off 7th Street and Douty). Its final day will be Dec. 20, according to a social media post earlier this month. This follows the closure of its spot in Tulare last weekend. “Though we originally planned to keep Tulare open through the end of the year, due to circumstances outside of our control, we’ll be closing a bit earlier than expected,” it wrote.
The closures appear to be at franchise locations.
“It’s hard not to see it as a failure at first, but it’s not. The truth is, we accomplished exactly what we set out to do: to build relationships through dillas and margs, to create spaces of connection, laughter, and community,” it wrote on social media.
These kinds of changes aren’t new for the restaurant.
Its downtown Fresno location (on P street) was open for a year and a half before it closed in 2018. For a time, it also operated in Three Rivers.
It will continue to operate in Fresno (at Weldon and Echo avenues), Visalia (on Main Street) and on the Central Coast (in San Luis Obispo). It also announced a new location on Willow and Shepherd avenues in Clovis, that is expected to open in early 2026.
To quote its social media post: “This isn’t the end of our story.”
North Fork BBQ is heading to the Central Coast.
The veteran-owned barbecue restaurant and catering company took over a building on Highway 41 and Road 222 in North Fork, after creating a name among the communities in the southern Yosemite foothills. “We started on the side of the road with a dream, a smoker, and pure hustle,” owner Trevor Seward wrote in a post on Facebook.
It operated out of a food truck before opening brick-and-mortar restaurants in Oakhust, and ultimately North Fork.
The family is relocating to Pismo Beach/Nipomo, where it is working to open a live-fire catering company, according to the restaurant’s social media. Eventually they hope to reopen a brick-and-mortar restaurant there.
“Overwhelmed doesn’t even begin to say it,” owner Trevor Seward posted on Facebook.
“The amount of love, comments, and messages pouring in from our last North Fork BBQ post has hit me straight in the gut — in the best way. I love my mountain people. You’ve stood by us through the smoke, the long mornings, the frozen winters, and the packed-out summers.
We’ll always owe everything to these mountains. They made us who we are. But now it’s time to take that same grit, that same fire, and carry it to the coast. A new chapter’s calling and were answering.”
North Fork BBQ will host a final fair well, Nov. 23.
“There’ll be music, BBQ favorites, drinks, and plenty of stories shared around the pit one last time. We would love to crack a beer with you all and tell you about our plans.”
The KFC location at Herndon and Spruce in northwest Fresno has closed. The fast food restaurant still has open locations on west Shaw and in River Park near Costco.
KFC (the national chicken chain once known as Kentucky Fried Chicken) has closed at least three Fresno-area restaurants since July. That includes a location at Herndon and Spruce Avenues, which closed some time last month.
The restaurant was open only three years, meant to test a new concept of smaller, digital-forward KFC locations. It followed the closure of the franchised locations at First Street and Bullard Avenue and Dakota and West avenues.
All three locations were owned by JEM Management, which holds KFC franchises in Fresno. It is unclear what prompted the closures. There are still more than 15 restaurants in the Fresno and Central San Joaquin Valley, according to KFC’s website.
Two other fast-food chains have closed, presumably to make way for a road improvement project at the intersection of Blackstone and McKinley Avenues.
A Taco Bell and Carl’s Jr. have been cleared out in recent weeks; the windows and doors covered with plywood boards matching other buildings in the vicinity. The branding has been fully removed from the Taco Bell, which sits on the intersection’s northeast corner, though the name is still visible, but sun-faded, on the building’s paint.
The Carl’s Jr. restaurant was among several properties the city had been looking to obtain through eminent domain to make way for the grade separation project, which would funnel traffic below the nearby railroad tracks.
It is unclear whether the restaurants will reopen following construction. For context, when Taco Bell lost its building at Herndon and Highway 99 to High Speed Rail development in 2022, it rebuilt a new restaurant to the north of that location.
A preliminary rendering looking from the northeast to southwest depicts for how both Blackstone and McKinley avenues in central Fresno will be lowered to run underneath the existing BNSF Railway tracks near Fresno City College. New bridges would carry the train tracks above the two streets. It’s similar to lowered streets under the railroad tracks at Shaw and Marks avenues in northwest Fresno.