Inside Fort Collins’ Very First Taco Palace Taking Place of Longtime Carl’s Jr.

Mexican restaurants are popular across Colorado; one small Mexican fast food chain that got its start in Colorado opened its third location in Fort Collins in December of 2025. With luck, hard work, and great food, they'll last as long (if not longer) that the Carl's Jr. that stood there, for four decades.

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The walls of the building at 421 Cowan Street in Fort Collins, near Mulberry and Riverside still echo with the sounds of hundreds of thousands of customers and tens of thousands of employees it once held. In December of 2025, the building went from holding a restaurant specializing in burgers to being one that specializes in burritos. The small chain may become national (like Carl's Jr.) in 40 years; you never know.

More Than One Carl's Jr. Closed in Northern Colorado in 2025

It was sad to find out in July of 2025, that the old Carl's Jr. would be shutting down after so long; it was a few months later, that the Loveland location in Downtown, also shut down. It was just a few weeks after the Fort Collins Carl's Jr. closing that it was announced that Taco Palace would be taking over the space. The up and coming chain had taken over a Good Times when it came to Longmont.

Is the Fort Collins Taco Palace Open 24 Hours a Day?

Taco Palace's third location in Colorado (Brighton, Longmont, Fort Collins) opened in late November of 2025. While the Brighton and Longmont locations may be open 24/7; when the Fort Collins one first opened it was only open from 7:30 a.m. - 8:30 p.m. at that time. Being a college town, I hoped that they'd get into their 24/7 hours before the students came back from winter break.