Taco Bell
| Company type | Public |
|---|---|
| Industry | Food Wholesale |
| Founded | Downey, California (March 21, 1962) |
| Headquarters | Irvine, California |
Key people | Glen Bell (founder) |
| Products | Tacos, burritos, and other Mexican-related fast food |
Number of employees | 143,000 |
| Website | www.tacobell.com |
Taco Bell is a fast-food restaurant chain which is a division of Yum! Brands, Inc., previously part of PepsiCo.
Taco Bell serves items based on Mexican cuisine, as adapted to the needs of the fast-food industry and to the tastes of its customers. Taco Bell's cuisine is Mexican-inspired American food, or Tex-Mex cuisine. It is headquartered in Irvine, California.
General operations
Taco Bell encourages its diners to "think outside the bun", a reference to its bypassing the efforts and popularity wars of such hamburger-selling fast food chains as McDonald's and Burger King - through the tortilla instead of the bun. Previously, Taco Bell had a menu item called the "Bell Beefer" (bun, [taco spiced] beef, lettuce, cheese and tomato) in the mid to late 1980s designed to compete with burger chains. The product did not prove popular and was discontinued.
Smaller Taco Bell Express outlets, offering a reduced version of the menu, appear in malls, airport terminals, department stores, hotels, cafeterias, gas stations, and other locations.
According to the Taco Bell website, there are currently over 6,500 Taco Bell franchises operating in the 48 mainland United States. Over 280 franchises operate in the U.S. states of Hawaii and Alaska, the U.S. insular areas of Guam and Puerto Rico, and other countries, including Canada (except the province of Quebec), Aruba, the Dominican Republic, Chile, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Ecuador, and many countries in Asia and Europe.
Australia had the Taco Bell concept introduced a few years back which had "piggybacked" off existing KFC or Pizza Hut sites and had moderate success but had found that Australian's were not used to a "fast food mexican" concept like Taco Bell. The Taco Bell dog was used commercials shown in Australia.
Taco Bells have been known to share retail space with other restaurant chains from Yum! Brands, Inc. such as KFC and Pizza Hut.
History
The founder of Taco Bell, Glen Bell, started with a hot dog stand in San Bernardino, California in 1946. After experimenting with alternative food items, he opened three Taco-Tia stands between 1954 and 1955, which he later sold to his partners. He then opened the first Taco Bell in Downey, California on March 21, 1962.
The first Taco Bell franchise was sold in 1964 and the company went public in 1969. In 1978, Bell sold the chain to PepsiCo. The chain was spun off along with Pepsi's other fast food restaurant holdings as Tricon Global Restaurants in October 1997. Tricon became Yum! Brands, Inc. in May 2002.
In the early 1990s, Taco Bell changed its menu due to pressure concerning the nutritional value of items labeled "Lite". It was believed the term lite was vague or possibly deceptive. Many of the items were dropped entirely from the menu; one such item was the "Taco Lite", a fried flour tortilla shell with beef, sour cream, lettuce, cheese and tomatoes. Some items were altered to change the nutritional values, such as the removal of black olives from the list of ingredients, in an effort to reduce sodium.
In early 1995, Taco Bell transformed the familiar rainbow logo, in favor of a simpler pink/purple combo logo in an effort to revitalize their almost 20 year old logo.
On April 1, 1996, Taco Bell took out a full-page advertisement in The New York Times announcing that they had purchased the Liberty Bell to "reduce the country's debt" and renamed it to "the Taco Liberty Bell." Thousands of people who did not immediately get the April Fool's Day hoax protested.
In 2003, Costa Rican Taco Bell franchises temporary marketed their tacos as "Tacos ticos," because for Costa Ricans, the word "taco" refers to what is known in Mexico as a flauta. ("Tico" and "Costarrican" are colloqial terms for natives of Costa Rica.)
In 2004, Taco Bell bought the naming rights to the Boise State Pavilion in Boise, Idaho and renamed the stadium the Taco Bell Arena.
In 2004, PepsiCo and Taco Bell introduced Mountain Dew Baja Blast. The tropical-lime flavored drink is exclusive to Taco Bell stores. Along with this, Taco Bell introduced its Mountain Dew Viva Variety! promotional campaign, where a sign shows three cups of Mountain Dew, one normal, one Code Red and one Baja Blast.
Added to the official menu in early 2006, the Crunchwrap Supreme is Taco Bell's latest permanent product. Their most recent "limited time only" item was the Chicken Caesar Grilled Stuft Burrito.
In Canada, there were no Taco Bells in the province of Quebec before 2006. Priszm Brandz announced in April of that year that their first Quebec Taco Bell would open in suburban Montreal during the summer with 20 to 30 more to follow across the province.[1]
Slogans
- Make a run for the border.
- Nothing ordinary about it.
- Cross the Border.
- Fetch that food!
- Taste that food! Dong!
- Change Is Good
- Want some?
- Yo quiero [I want] Taco Bell.
- Think outside the bun.
- Spice up the night.
Mascots
Taco Bell has not had many mascots during its run. In 1995, they introduced two mascots to promote the Taco Bell kids meal, Nacho and Dog. Nacho is a crazy cat who gets all his knowledge of the world by watching TV and is obsessed with Mexican food. Dog is a dog (obviously) who is more well-behaved than Nacho and gets all his knowledge of the world by reading books. They were dropped in mid-1997.
In September 1997, the Taco Bell chihuahua was introduced. He spoke the line in commercials for their wildly popular "Yo quiero Taco Bell" campaign. In the Spanish language, yo quiero means I want or I love. The little dog's real name was "Gidget", but that was never publicised in the ad campaign. The character was voiced by comedian Carlos Alazraqui. By 1998, the Taco Bell chihuahua was known as the biggest commercial star on the planet, but his popularity had dropped significantly by 2000. As of the early 2000s, Taco Bell has gone away from the chihuahua and instead has promoted its value menu through "I'm Full!!" commercials and used "Think outside the bun" as its slogan. Gidget did, however, make a cameo in a 2002 Geico commercial where he met Geico's spokes-gecko. That commercial continued to air through 2004.
Acquisitions
- In 1984, Taco Bell acquired Pup 'N' Taco.
- In 1986, Taco Bell acquired the Faux-Mex restaurant chain known as Zantigo, known for their Chilito, a chili-cheese burrito. [1]
A picture of a former Zantigo location acquired by Taco Bell in Columbus, Ohio
Boycott
In 2001, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers organized a boycott of Taco Bell restaurants one year after presenting a petition to Yum! Brands Inc., principally demanding higher rates of pay and better conditions for workers on tomato farms in Florida that Taco Bell buys produce from. In 2005, the company responded by meeting several of their demands, including raising the buying price of a pound of tomatoes by a penny, resulting in the boycott being withdrawn. The efforts of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers and the response of Yum! Brands Inc. to this have been applauded by former American president Jimmy Carter and Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation.
Media References
The Hollywood futurist movie Demolition Man has several references to Taco Bell as being the only restaurant franchise in the future after the franchise wars; presumably there are different levels of Taco Bell restaurants but "all restaurants are Taco Bell". However, in the German-language dub of the movie, all references to Taco Bell were changed to references to "Pizza Hut"; scenes displaying the Taco Bell logo or signs were either replaced or digitally edited to show a Pizza Hut logo instead. The most likely reason for this change is a cultural difference; in German-speaking countries, Taco Bell is hardly well-known or established, meaning that few viewers would understand the joke about Taco Bell, a modern-day fast-food chain, becoming the high-class exclusive restaurant of the future. For the purposes of the movie's joke, Pizza Hut was apparently chosen as a more representative well-known fast-food chain for the target demographic.
In the beginning of year 2001 X-Men: Evolution kids meal was launched which turned out to be a success.
In an episode of the MTV series Beavis & Butt-head, a teacher claims that the only Spanish words that have been learned by the title characters (who are enrolled in a high school Spanish class) were what they learned at Taco Bell ("...and Beavis can't even get that right," the teacher concludes). When asked to speak a sentence in Spanish, Beavis replies "Taco Supreme."
The popular by demand menu item Crunchwrap Supreme was originally intended as a limited time only item, but was kept on the menu because of its high profitability. Franchise stores were allowed to discontinue the item, though most chose not to do so. It was "re-released" in 2006. The line "It's Back!" was put in front of the posters outside on windows at Taco Bell restaurants.
In 1995, the rock band Primus sang about Taco Bell's Seven Layer Burrito in their Grammy-nominated song "Wynona's Big Brown Beaver".
The metal group "Faxedhead" make many references to Taco Bell restaurants in their music, including the claim that one of their albums was recorded in the bathroom of a Taco Bell franchise.
Miscellaneous
The earlier logo had been a bell topped by a swirling serape that was further topped by a sombrero being worn by a siesta-taking Mexican who was tucked into the design. Presumably one reason for abandoning this logo, aside from simplifying it, was to get away from a Mexican stereotype, unmindful of the high esteem in which the traditional, refreshing siesta break is held in Latin American culture.
Many Taco Bell Express brand outlets can be found in suburban strip malls, often adjacent to other Yum!-brand eateries, most notably Pizza Hut and KFC; when all three occupy the same building, the structure is colloquially referred to as a "KenTaco Hut". In Pennsylvania, some Taco Bell Express counters initially appeared in Wawa brand convenience stores in the mid 1990s, but quickly disappeared for varying reasons.
Some Taco Bell/Long John Silvers combinations are colloqually referred to as "Taco Silvers".
Big Bell Value Menu
For the full menu, see Taco Bell menu
In the early nineties, Taco Bell was famous for its "59 79 99" pricing plan, in which nearly everything on the menu was either 59, 79, or 99 cents.
Despite Taco Bell's relatively cheap per-item pricing, it never had a true value menu until the mid 2000's. The menu features several items generally priced below $1.49. The introduction of the value menu also brought new items to the restaurant's offerings, notably items made with potatoes and Taco Bell's third dessert, the Caramel Apple Empanada. (Cinnamon Crispas, triangular fried flour tortilla shells were offered until being replaced by Cinnamon Twists) The Cheesy Bean and Rice Burrito recently replaced the Bean Burrito Especial, which was removed because of its small profit margin. Also of note is that half of the menu is not truly new, as Beef Combo Burritos, Cheesy Bean and Rice Burritos, Double Decker Tacos, and both Spicy Chicken items had been on the regular menu before, as permanent or limited time only items.
The Big Bell Value Menu includes:
- Grande Soft Taco
- Double Decker Taco
- Cheesy Bean and Rice Burrito
- Beef Combo Burrito
- Beef & Potato Burrito
- Spicy Chicken Burrito
- Spicy Chicken Soft Taco
- Cheesy Fiesta Potatoes
- Caramel Apple Empanada
Notable employees
- José Padilla, suspected terrorist
- Boyd Rice, noise music pioneer and Social Darwinist ("...when I was sixteen. Just long enough to cause enough trouble to get kicked out of there." Recounted in RE/Search No. 11: Pranks!.)
- Krist Novoselic, Nirvana bassist.
- Steve Smith, Wide Receiver for the Carolina Panthers American Football team.
- John C.Dvorak, former TechTV personality and current This Week In Tech pundit, worked there out of college.