Let’s rip this Band-Aid off right away: There’s no alcohol at Taco Bell Cantina. No beer, no sangria, none of the boozy Mountain Dew slushies that they serve at the flagship Cantina in downtown Chicago.

The 6-month-old San Francisco Cantina on Third Street, a base hit away from AT&T Park, is the second of a new class of Taco Bells meant to appeal to the young professional crowd. Its interior is a study in restaurant design trends: all exposed brick, subway tile and scuffed-up wood, with electrical and USB outlets at almost every seat. Workers build your Crunchwraps and Quesalupas in full view behind glass, like a certain other mega-popular burrito chain.

The idea with Cantina is to make Taco Bell into less of a place you pick up food and more of a place you’d hang out after work. It’s a seemingly savvy move for the chain to diversify into alcohol sales, in this era of shrinking profits and new competition from “clean” fast food restaurants such as Sweetgreen, Amy’s Kitchen and the USDA-certified Organic Coup. As a brand, Taco Bell seems to inspire more fierce devotion than any other fast food chain except maybe In-N-Out; it makes sense to try to broaden that loyalty through happy hour.

A location in San Francisco may have been a tactical error, however, as the city is pushing back on the Cantina’s application for a liquor license, crushing any hopes of a wine pairing with your Chalupa, at least so far. Neighbors are concerned about the potential for increased noise, vagrancy and underage drinking, and more than 200 have filed complaints during the mandated 30-day window for comment. (For perspective, Lt. David Falzon, the San Francisco Police Department’s liaison with the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, says that 10 complaints are generally considered a lot; 200 is “borderline unprecedented.”)

The drama didn’t stop there. The SFPD already had its own concerns about the neighborhood’s high crime and saturation of alcohol licenses, as well as the potential for copycat applications — like a sudden urge to sell beer from the McDonald’s across the street. It recommended that Cantina be denied its beer and wine license application. The ABC then conducted its own investigation and recommended approval with some conditions, including noise management and reduced hours. An administrative hearing on May 25 will probably resolve the question of alcoholic slushies once and for all.

In the meantime, we have a new Taco Bell in the middle of a city that’s notoriously chain-adverse. For all of Cantina’s fancy trappings, it’s not much different from any other Taco Bell location — except for a short menu of “shareables,” a selection of special dishes that probably sounded good in a marketing meeting, but aren’t so much on the plate.

The best of them is the chicken strips, salty and crisp, which come with a tangy buffalo sauce and harmless avocado crema. “Rolled tacos” are no better or worse than your basic frozen supermarket taquitos. Nachos are uniformly disappointing, with oddly rubbery chips and lackluster toppings, and even the exciting-sounding quesadilla nachos were nothing more than a pile of wan tortillas filled with tasteless cheese.

But you can also order from the regular Taco Bell menu, and seeing as most of us have years-long relationships with certain menu items, I’m not even going to try and convince you to stray. Personal attitudes toward fast food may vary depending on class, income and upbringing, but Taco Bell’s menu items are designed to taste good and most of the time they do.

I made three visits to Taco Bell Cantina between 11 a.m. and 11 p.m. Liquor license or not, it was full every time.

Anna Roth is a freelance writer in San Francisco. Email: food@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @annaroth

What to order: Avoid the nachos and you should be fine.

Where: Taco Bell Cantina, 710 Third St. (at Townsend), San Francisco, (415) 979-1587. www.tacobell.com

When: 7 a.m.-midnight daily