Live Mas: Spicy Secrets Behind Taco Bell's Success

Taco Bell is the most ubiquitous Mexican food chain in the U.S., and it has managed to amass a cult-like following among devotees thanks to its cheap eats. Fans' loyalty can perhaps be linked to Taco Bell's embrace of new ideas to stay fresh, including the Sept. 15 premiere of a musical starring Dolly Parton to commemorate the return of the Taco Bell Mexican Pizza on the same day. 

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Taco Bell's fan-favorite Mexican Pizza is returning to the menu, and no one is happier than Dolly Parton, who is literally singing its praises. "Mexican Pizza: The Musical," starring Parton and Doja Cat, is set to premiere Sept. 15, the same day that the Mexican Pizza returns to Taco Bell restaurants. Grammy Award-winning duo Abigail Barlow and Emily Bear have already teased one song on TikTok, which is where the musical is to be streamed.

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After five years of hosting weddings in Las Vegas, Taco Bell is looking to help one couple celebrate the digital wedding of their dreams this fall in its metaverse wedding chapel. The virtual, interactive event will allow the couple to customize their special day, down to the menu and music. Family and friends can attend by watching the livestreamed event on Decentraland, which has a virtual version of Taco Bell's Las Vegas wedding chapel and cantina. The deadline to apply was Sept. 6.

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Who wouldn't want a degree in living mas? Taco Bell is going to make it happen for a group of store managers who will become the inaugural class of Taco Bell Business School. Restaurant Business reports that the chain is teaming up with the University of Louisville and Taco Bell parent company's Yum Center for Global Franchise Excellence to make the six-week course a reality. The free program, which launched in February, focuses on helping members of underrepresented groups become franchise owners. In launching the program Taco Bell joins the likes of McDonald's and Domino's, which have run similar training programs.

All of Taco Bell's consumer-facing packaging, like those burrito wrappers and Baja Blast cups, will be recyclable, compostable, or reusable by 2025. That's a lofty goal, so the company is asking for your help by piloting a nationwide program to recycle its ubiquitous sauce packets and keep them out of landfills. You can collect your spent packets in a recyclable container, print out a shipping label online, and mail them to TerraCycle, a recycling company Taco Bell is partnering with, for free. The packets will be cleaned and melted down to create plastic for use in other products that sadly contain no hint of Diablo or Fire sauce.

Glen Bell, Taco Bell's founder, was no stranger to the fast-food game when he founded Taco Bell in the early '60s. Inspired by the success of a fledgling chain you just might have heard of — McDonald's — he started a competing burger and hot-dog stand, getting money for the venture by selling his sister's refrigerator. Bell only put tacos on the menu when the burger competition became too stiff, figuring he needed something to stand out. Bell reportedly found inspiration to serve hard shell tacos at Mitla Cafe, a Mexican restaurant across the street from one of his burger stands on Route 66 in San Bernardino, California, where he also may have picked up a few lessons in the kitchen. The decision to focus on tacos proved fortuitous, indeed, leading to a Mexican food stand called Taco Tia, and then the first Taco Bell.

Taco Bell remains an easy choice for hungry customers looking to stretch their dollars. The first restaurant sold tacos, burritos, tostados, frijoles, and more for just 19 cents each. Adjusted for inflation, that's about $1.65 for a burrito or taco — not too far off today's prices for the more basic varieties. But that 10-cent small Coke was a smokin' deal. Adjusted for inflation, that's only 87 cents, and a far cry from the $1.79 you'll pay for a small fountain drink at Taco Bell today.

The nation's first Taco Bell (ahem, "Taco Bell Numero Uno") opened in 1962 in Downey, California, but was ultimately left vacant in 2014. The following year, developers planned to tear down the modest 400-square-foot building. Taco Bell stepped in to relocate the entire building, strapping it to a massive truck and safely depositing it at corporate headquarters in Irvine, about 45 miles away.

Taco Bell customers in the '70s, '80s, and '90s could tuck into a long-discontinued burger called the Bell Beefer instead of a taco or burrito. Meant to compete with the likes of McDonald's and Burger King, the Bell Beefer was a bit like a sloppy Joe with some vaguely Mexican seasoning, cheese, lettuce, and tomato. A loyal group of nearly 5,000 fans are still demanding the return of the Bell Beefer in a Facebook group.

As if a Taco Bell that's literally on the sand with sweeping ocean views doesn't sound heavenly enough, the famously scenic location in Pacifica, California, has a walk-up window for beachgoers and "surfboard parking." Major bonus: It was recently renovated, morphing into a Taco Bell Cantina — that is, a Taco Bell with booze — in the process. That means you can cool off with wine, beer, sangria, and Twisted Freezes, inspired by frozen margaritas, but in flavors like Mountain Dew Baja Blast.

There are about 500 Taco Bells outside the U.S., spread across nearly 30 countries. One place where there is a conspicuous absence? Mexico. The chain's first attempt at establishing a foothold there, in the early '90s, was a bust, confusing customers who thought they would be getting something resembling authentic Mexican food. More than a decade later, Taco Bell tried again, billing itself as everything but authentic Mexican, but the effort still wasn't well received. As one critic said, "It's like Mexicans trying to come up and sell us hot dogs."

The Doritos Locos Taco debuted in 2012, and it was a hit. Actually, that's an understatement: Taco Bell sold a staggering 375 million of the tacos that year, or more than 1 million every day. The idea took a surprising amount of work to pull off, though, with teams from Taco Bell and Frito-Lay testing more than 40 recipes over two years and going through untold numbers of shell prototypes to get the crunch and seasoning just right.

If you think the Doritos Locos Taco is strange, buckle up. Some of Taco Bell's more eye-popping menu experiments have included the Waffle Taco, Cheetos Burrito, Naked Chicken Chalupa (the "shell" was made entirely of chicken), and even a Kit Kat quesadilla — er, "chocoladilla." But you need to hop in the way-back machine for one of the chain's biggest flops. In the mid-'80s, Taco Bell put a seafood salad on the menu to compete with McDonald's Filet-O-Fish. A 1986 commercial touted "fresh vegetables, tender bay shrimp, and a delicious blend of white fish and snow crab, a refreshing change from anything on a bun." Reports of food poisoning, however, contributed to its demise.

Like most chains with stores abroad, Taco Bell caters to local tastes by offering menu items you can't track down stateside. They include kimchi quesadillas in Korea, chicken tikka masala burritos in India, shrimp burritos with wasabi mayo in Japan, and a flat-bread gordita topped with tzatziki sauce and fries in Cyprus.  

Want to live mas and start raking in the cash with your own Taco Bell franchise? The good news is that the company is actively seeking franchisees as part of an expansion push; the bad news is that you need some serious coin to join up. You could be on the hook for up to more than $3 million in initial startup costs. But the investment could pay off quickly: Average sales per restaurant were $1.6 million in 2020.

You have to hand it to the evil geniuses in charge of Taco Bell's marketing, who have a history of grabbing our attention in over-the-top ways. There was the time that Taco Bell promised free tacos to every American if the Russian space station Mir hit a floating target on its free fall back to Earth. And remember when Taco Bell pranked America on April Fool's Day, convincing newspaper readers in full-page ads that it had bought the historic Liberty Bell? It even airlifted a taco truck to a remote western Alaska town after a prankster had falsely convinced local residents they'd be getting their own Taco Bell.

Is Taco Bell's beef … actually beef? A class-action lawsuit in 2011 alleged that there were too many oats and fillers in the beef for it to actually be called such. In response, Taco Bell ran "Thank you for suing us" ads that explained that the chain's recipe was 88% beef and 12% "secret recipe" ingredients like water, spices, oats, and cocoa powder. The lawsuit was eventually dropped.

If you watched TV in the late '90s, you couldn't escape Taco Bell's ubiquitous big-eared chihuahua, famous for that unshakeable slogan, "Yo quiero Taco Bell." In real life, the chihuahua was named Gidget, and the commercials propelled her to a life of fame and pampering before her death in 2009. She opened the New York Stock Exchange, traveled in relative luxury, and even got a part in the "Legally Blonde" sequel.

Getting married in Vegas? Yawn. Getting married at Taco Bell in Vegas? Now you've got our attention, no Elvis impersonator required. A Taco Bell Cantina on the Strip hosts weddings for a happy couple and up to 25 guests in its very own chapel. Just $600 and as little as four hours' notice will get you an ordained officiant, private reception area, food, and even a bouquet made out of sauce packets.

For four nights in the summer of 2019, the V Palm Springs hotel transformed into The Bell, a Taco Bell-themed pop-up hotel. Think chalupas from room service, sauce-packet rafts in the pool, and even a salon offering Taco Bell nail art and haircuts. If you're asking yourself who would fork over $169 or more a night to stay in a Taco Bell hotel, the answer is quite a few people — reservations sold out within two minutes.

If you just have to proclaim your love of chalupas as visibly as possible, head on over to the Taco Shop to check out all the Taco Bell apparel on offer, including leggings, pajamas, and T-shirts. As if that's not enough, in 2017, Taco Bell teamed up with Forever 21 to launch a clothing line that included sauce-packet bodysuits and cropped logo hoodies.

It's sobering but true: Just a few short years ago, the world lacked a taco emoji. Ahead of a late 2015 update to the emoji system, Taco Bell organized a campaign railing against the inequality of emojis, which back then included a pizza and hamburger, but no taco. So Taco Bell began an online petition, cranked out taco emoji T-shirts, and ramped up the social media pressure. Later that year, its efforts bore fruit (well, tacos).

As part of its launch of a $2 Meal Deal in 2010, Taco Bell started a petition asking the Federal Reserve to boost production of the little-used $2 bill — made all the more interesting because of a widely circulated internet legend that a Taco Bell cashier rejected a customer's $2 bill, believing it was fake. But the Fed was unmoved, and $2 bills remain rare precisely because people tend to collect them instead of spend them, dampening demand.

Looking for a kiddie combo to satisfy a picky tot? Taco Bell axed its kids' meals back in 2013. And though the move was hailed as a step in the fight to combat childhood obesity, Taco Bell itself admitted that the decision was really a financial one, and that kids' meals — accounting for less than 1% of sales — just didn't make much money. (It might not be part of a kids' menu, but for our money, the underrated cheesy roll-up should satisfy all but the pickiest kids.)

There must be something in the hot sauce, because about half of the U.S. eats at Taco Bell at least once a month, company officials have said. And the average Taco Bell customer is much more devoted, stopping in once every 11 days.

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