What could Taco Bell's crunchy tacos possibly have to do with
the Mir space station crashing into the ocean?! Keep watching to find out.
"Yo Quiero Taco Bell!"
Even after purging over two dozen items from their menu, Taco Bell is known for an
overwhelmingly large selection of food options. So it may come as a surprise
that when the first Taco Bell opened back in 1962, there were only six items on the menu.
Some of these items, such as the chili burger, are no longer offered.
But others have stood the test of time, and the crunchy taco is one such item.
What hasn't stood the test of the time, though, is the price: At the original Downey, California
location, crunchy tacos once sold for just 19 cents apiece. Considering that a crunchy taco
is eight times more expensive in 2022, coming in at a dollar and fifty nine cents, it's difficult
to imagine a time when a single quarter could get you a fresh taco — with change to spare.
Still, Taco Bell is known for its value offerings,
having run all sorts of meal deals and value menu promotions over the years,
and the crunchy taco is among the most common freebies the chain loves to throw in.
These days, tacos are a staple of the average American diet. As of 2020, there are at least 19
different Mexican restaurant chains operating in the United States. But decades before restaurants
like Taco Bell and Chipotle became commonplace, tacos were unfamiliar to most American diners — so
much so that Bell's first customers called them "take-owes" rather than tacos.
Of course, the incredible popularity of the original restaurant meant word spread fast
about how to say "taco" correctly. And once people knew what tacos were, and how to say
the word, there was no stopping the public's insatiable appetite for all things Taco Bell.
"I'm Young MC with a story to tell, I just got a free cup from Taco Bell. And MTV makes
the whole thing fun, buy a giant sized Pepsi and you'll get one."
There's no denying the hand Taco Bell founder, Glen Bell,
had in introducing the crunchy taco to a wider audience. His ability to
mass-produce deep-fried, crunchy taco shells was a monumental breakthrough,
blazing a trail for Mexican cuisine to rival any other in the American cultural lexicon.
Yet despite Taco Bell's claims that Bell "invented" the crunchy taco,
the reality is a bit more complicated. In fact,
some may even go so far as to accuse the late founder of straight-up thievery.
After serving as a cook in the US Marines during World War II, Bell opened a hamburger and hot dog
stand in San Bernardino, California — directly across the street from a Mexican restaurant,
which had been serving crunchy tacos for over a decade. Noticing the long lines at
the neighboring restaurant, Bell became intrigued by the popularity of the then-unknown food item,
and figured out how to make the taco shells himself. Using this new-found knowledge,
he opened a new restaurant in 1954 called Taco Tia.
Throughout the 1950s, Bell continued to tinker with his production methods
for the crunchy taco shell, opening two additional Taco Tia locations,
and later, a small chain of restaurants called El Taco. Eventually, he was able to perfect his
fast-paced production of crunchy taco shells, and in 1962, Bell consolidated his efforts. He sold
his Taco Tia and El Taco stores and opened the first Taco Bell in Downey, California.
So, as it turns out, Bell didn't create the crunchy taco at all — but he did master the
art of making a lot of them very quickly. And the rest, as they say, is history.
Taco Bell is a beloved American institution, and while the menu
has changed and grown substantially since the first restaurant opened,
the most popular menu item has consistently remained the same: the crunchy taco.
As recently as 2016, the crunchy taco was the fast food chain's number one seller,
besting both the soft taco and the monumentally-popular Doritos Locos Taco.
Perhaps it shouldn't be shocking, given the name and all, but a sixty year tenure
is nothing to sneeze at. Taco Bell quite literally sells billions of tacos each year.
While the fact that crunchy tacos are included with combo meals may boost the sales figures,
there are other factors contributing to the crunchy taco's continued success.
There's never a doubt about its availability, and the simplicity of its ingredients mean
quality will remain consistent between trips to the Bell.
One of the defining aspects of a fast food restaurant is the speed with which you're
served — and Taco Bell has this down pat. While the restaurant's embrace of innovation
and technology has certainly helped its overall efficiency, nothing is more responsible for Taco
Bell's swift service than how quickly crew members can prepare the restaurant's most popular item.
With proper training, an empty shell can become a fully assembled,
wrapped crunchy taco in under seven seconds, meaning that Taco Bell's twelve-count Taco Party
Pack can be made to order, without slowing down the drive-thru line.
This quick and easy assembly has also enabled crunchy tacos to become the default side dish
for practically every combo meal and special promotion on the menu,
taking the place of french fries or tortilla chips at other restaurants.
Believe it or not, the appeal of Taco Bell's crunchy tacos isn't limited to the phenomenally
addictive taste — science suggests it's also due to the texture of the taco shell itself.
According to Dr. Charles Spence, a Professor of Experimental Psychology at Oxford,
the way a food feels in the mouth plays a large role in our perception of whether
that food is good or bad. He told Epicurious that whether
we like or dislike a food depends more on its texture than any other quality.
This natural preference seems to be an instinct developed as the human
species evolved. As a general rule of thumb for our ancient ancestors,
crisp and crunchy foods equaled fresh and edible ones.
As a result, we tend to derive pleasure from both the sound and texture of crunchy foods.
In fact, Dr. Spence believes that we actually perceive louder-crunching foods as fresher and
better-tasting than softer-crunching foods. While the precise reason for this remains unknown,
there's no denying that the crunchy taco's popularity can
be at least partially attributed to the shell's sound and feel.
"Shaq is suffering from Taco Neck Syndrome (TNS.)
It's caused by his craving for delicious Taco Bell tacos.”
Though it's commonly added to Taco Bell combo meals as a side,
the crunchy taco is closer to a cheeseburger entree than a side of fries like you'd get at
other fast food joints. And while very few people would describe the crunchy
taco as healthy compared to the actual health conscious choices on offer, the bottom line is
that it's far less nutritionally-damaging than equivalent menu items from similar restaurants.
According to Taco Bell, the crunchy taco has less fat and half as much sodium as
burgers from McDonalds or Wendy's. The crunchy tacos also contain only about
half as many calories as those burgers, meaning you could eat two tacos and only
consume a few more calories than if you thought inside the bun.
Even compared to a traditional fast food side, the crunchy taco is healthier across the board than
even small portions of french fries. And for their particularly health conscious customers, Taco Bell
offers a wide variety of healthy menu items and customization options, so everyone can Live Mas.
The crunchy taco is so close to perfect that even considering changing the recipe is cause
for concern. There's no doubt that some efforts to improve on greatness have spectacularly backfired
throughout history — we're looking at you, New Coke — but when Taco Bell did finally decide
to introduce a new variant of crunchy taco, they knew they had a smash hit on their hands.
Frankly, the Doritos Locos Taco is the sort of creation that makes one marvel in appreciation.
It's such a simple culinary mash-up that it's hard to believe nobody else thought to do it first.
It's just a normal crunchy taco, but instead of a plain old corn shell, Doritos Locos shells have
been tossed in the same seasoning as the boldly-flavored chips they're named after.
The Doritos Locos Taco was an instant success. Since its debut in 2012, the Doritos Locos Taco
has become a staple of the restaurant's menu, and it's not hard to understand why: the item was the
chain's most successful product launch until 2018, when Nacho Fries claimed the title. The Doritos
tacos were so successful that they even looped back around into their own Doritos chip flavor.
Limited time varieties of the taco have come and gone, such as the Flamin' Hot versions,
but it's unlikely that the classic Nacho Cheese will ever leave the Bell's menu.
"Since 2012, two billion have been sold! Which is one billion more than one billion,
and that is what the Bell happened!"
Taco Bell is well known for its innovative approach to Mexican fast food. And with the
crunchy taco existing as a sort of baseline for the rest of the restaurant's menu,
it makes sense that it's been repurposed through the years to create some truly beloved items.
The fan-favorite Cheesy Gordita Crunch, which is often ranked as one of the best-tasting Taco
Bell menu items, would've never seen the light of day without the classic crunchy taco — which,
by the way, is also available in Doritos Locos varieties.
Taco Bell's creativity with the crunchy taco hasn't been limited to their menu, either:
the restaurant even released a recipe for a crunchy taco-filled shepherd's pie.
The crunchy taco's continuous popularity has been a driving factor in Taco Bell's success, and
a crucial component of its marketing strategy. In 2022, the chain offered the Taco Lover's Pass —
where a monthly subscription entitled customers to one taco per day for $10 a month. A great deal for
Taco Bell aficionados, but also a clever marketing ploy to get the crunchy tacos into the minds– and
mouths– of the public, even after the promotion was quietly retired just a few months later.
But the Taco Lover's Pass was nothing compared to the brand's history of outlandish marketing
stunts. From special edition game consoles to pop-up hotels, there's little the
brand won't do to grab your attention. One of Taco Bell's most famous marketing
stunts is to offer up free tacos to coincide with cultural events. Every year since 2007,
Taco Bell has run a promotion during the World Series, called "Steal a Base, Steal a Taco,"
where the restaurant gives away free tacos if a player steals a base during the Fall Classic.
But it wasn't the first time Taco Bell employed this strategy.
This type of promotion has been a standard part of Taco Bell's advertising campaigns
since at least 2001, when the restaurant pulled a stunt that was truly out of this world.
"The Taco Bell target, if Mir lands on this 40 by 40 foot bullseye off the coast of Australia,
the company has promised free tacos to every American."
The Mir Space Station — when commissioned in 1986, it was the largest artificial satellite in Earth's
orbit. But after Russian cosmonauts shifted their focus to the then-new International Space Station,
Mir was scheduled for deorbiting. In other words, it was to purposely crash into the Pacific Ocean.
Hoping to capitalize off the nation's interest in the deorbiting space station,
Taco Bell placed a 40-by-40 foot target in the Pacific Ocean, emblazoned with the words,
"Free Taco Here." If Mir landed on the target, Taco Bell had promised a free taco to every single
American. The odds of the space station actually hitting the target were extraordinarily low
"The odds are about one in seven and a half billion. Bottom line…"
"No taco."
"Bottom line, no taco."
Though that didn't stop the company from taking out an enormous insurance policy — just in case.