A mysterious food called ‘tay-kohs.’
No drive-thru, and no seating.
And chili burgers on the menu??
Taco Bell’s come a long way since it first opened in 1962.
Americans butchered the pronunciation of taco back in the '60s, often ordering a "tay-koh."
"It's taco!
Taco!"
But they couldn't have known better.
When Taco Bell was founded in Downey, California, in 1962, tacos weren't as popular as other
Mexican foods such as tamales, enchiladas, and frijoles, according to the book "Taco
USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America."
While other foods from Mexico crossed the border as early as the 1890s, tacos didn't
break through until the 1950s, explains author Gustavo Arellano.
There was a good chance that few Americans outside of California and Texas ever heard
of tacos until Taco Bell rang its way into the rest of America.
Arellano writes that even a decade after the first Taco Bell, Glen Bell, the founder of
the chain, traveled with a pronunciation guide and the chain's menu to places that hadn't
heard of Taco Bell yet.
There's ample seating in most Taco Bell locations today, but the very first unit was too small
for people to sit and chat over a burrito.
It was housed in a compact, 20-by-20-foot space, Britannica notes.
That's roughly enough space to park two cars.
Customers were required to place their orders through a walk-up window, Huffpost adds.
Though founder Glen Bell had previously run restaurants that included drive-thrus, such
as Bell's Drive-in in San Bernardino, and a drive-thru taco stand called Taco Tia, according
to the Downey Patriot, the first Taco Bell didn't give customers the option to holler
for their order from the comfort of their cars.
The Institute of Culinary Education's website explains that walk-up windows were quite popular
in Southern California in the late '40s and '50s.
And what was thought to be an antiquated concept is making a comeback.
The old-school style of serving customers a limited set of menu items through a window
became popular with the need to distance socially during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The New York Times notes that while the McDonald brothers were killing it with their hamburger
business in San Bernardino, California, in the 1950s, Taco Bell founder Glen Bell opened
his own burger stand a short distance away.
Customers didn't share the excitement, and he was pushed to innovate.
Bell didn't just change an item or two, but the entire menu.
After seeing the buzz at the Mexican restaurant that his burger stand stood across from, Bell
decided to start a taco stand.
But he didn't stop there.
When the time came to build the first Taco Bell restaurant, he wanted it to at least
look authentic.
According to the biography "Taco Titan," Bell asked architect Robert McKay to make the structure
look like buildings in Mexico.
McKay designed a building in the Mission style, which Love to Know explains was the style
of the churches built by Spanish colonials between 1770s and 1820s.
It features stucco walls, archways, and rooftops made with tiled bricks.
Most Taco Bell locations look nothing like the first building now, but the chain still
acknowledges its roots, noting:
"Taco Bell's architecture of the '60s and '70s remains as one of the most recognizable
and iconic designs of the era."
In 2016, Taco Bell did decide to bring back a modern twist on the Mission style for some
new stores, Penn Live reported.
"I would like you to accompany me…to Taco Bell."
"Look forward to it."
You couldn't get a chilled Baja Blast at the first Taco Bell, but you might have been able
to hear Mariachis sing songs of Old Mexico while you were chugging your root beer.
A year after the launch of Taco Bell's first restaurant, Glen Bell built a strip mall right
next to it.
Since the Taco Bell and the Plaza were all part of the same complex, you could take your
order of tostadas and sit at a table on the sidewalk, or next to an open fire, while listening
to Mariachi bands croon, a 1963 ad touted.
KCET noted that the mall included open air shops, and Huffpost adds that it was built
with a Mission-style design similar to the first Taco Bell.
One of the shops was a burger and hotdog stand run by the owners of the chains Taco Quickie
and Quickie Dog.
The mall was advertised as a hub for Mexican food, entertainment, and curio shops featuring Mexican wares.
An ad marked its festive opening saying: "Old Mexico has come to Downey!"
Glen Bell was set on making his tacos the talk of the town.
Learning to fry the tortilla in hot oil was no biggie.
What turned out to be harder was conceiving a way to make the process quick and easy.
According to the book "Taco USA," in the early 1950s, a chef in New York and another in Arizona
had received patents for devices that fried several tortillas at once.
Bell was probably unaware of these developments in his taco-verse, coming up with his own
way of streamlining the taco-making process.
The biography "Taco Titan" recounts that he reached out to a chicken coop producer to
buy some chicken wire.
He used the wire to weave baskets that would fry as many as six tortillas at a time.
Once fried, instead of heaping them into a taco hill, he aligned them neatly on a "taco
trail" so that he could pluck one off, stuff and serve it in a jiffy.
Today, you won't see Taco Bell staff frying tortillas in chicken wire baskets, of course.
A Taco Bell manager explained on Reddit that the shells come pre-made, and the staff just
puts in the toppings.
Today, Taco Bell's logo is a plain-looking white bell on a purple background, a design
it adopted in 2016.
This is a far cry from the original logo that showed a man in a sombrero sitting on a bell.
And the building itself sported a design that looked like a bunch of colorful blocks left
around carelessly by a toddler.
Over the years, the Taco Bell logo, just like its menu, has undergone significant changes.
From 1996 to 2016, the logo was a pink bell on a blue background.
The bell had a yellow clapper that sparked a whole debate on Reddit about whether it
was an ingenious design twist on an image of a taco.
The mellowed-down 2016 logo allowed for easy customization for campaigns and promotions,
according to AdAge.
The creative agency Fabrik Brands mentions on its website that in the mid-to-late 1989s,
the bell was a lemon yellow color with a reddish-orange background.
If you trace the history of Taco Bell's logos further back, you'll find a monochrome design,
from the mid-1970s, that was only lettering, with no other design.
"Taca-taca-taca-taca, Taco Bell!"
The first Taco Bell had a menu item that probably didn't fit its Mexican vibe but was loved
by its customers nonetheless: the chili burger.
It rested next to the tacos and tostadas on the chain's first-ever menu, a delicious oddball.
People who never visited the original location probably know it as the Bell Beefer, but it
has been called by different names over the years.
The chain's original menu had the Chili Burger, which was later called Bell Burger according
to Newsnation, and then became Bell Beefer.
The Bell Beefer was very similar to a Sloppy Joe, with ground spiced taco meat tucked in
between two hamburger buns along with tomatoes, onions, lettuce, and cheese.
The popularity of Sloppy Joes, and likewise Bell Beefers, apparently slumped as the years
went by, forcing the chain to remove it from the menu.
But some customers really took a liking to them.
A review on the "Taco Bell Please Bring Back the Bell Beefer" Facebook group proudly declares,
"The Bell Beefer was my favorite Taco Bell item back in the day.
Hopefully Taco Bell will bring it back."
Unless you know what you really want, browsing through Taco Bell's menu is much like leafing
through the pages of a magazine.
There's a lot there, and it can take a big chunk of time.
Plus, there is the big task of deciding whether to go for the pizza combo or a chalupa deluxe
box, or whether to have a cinnamon twist or not.
At the first Taco Bell, though, things were relatively simple.
Right above the walk-up window was a menu board that featured a total of five items,
according to Newsnation: frijoles, tostados, chili burgers, red or green burritos, and tacos.
Just to put things into perspective, the list is shorter than the number of menu items that
the chain removed from its menu in 2020, which CNN noted was as many as 11.
As for drinks, at the first Taco Bell, you could order a coffee, root beer, Coke, or orange juice.
Today there are a ton of other options, including a variety of freezes and sparkling iced tea.
But you can't get Coke.
PepsiCo bought Taco Bell in 1978, Funding Universe notes.
In 1997, PepsiCo sold off its fast-food division, which also included Kentucky Fried Chicken
and Pizza Hut.
The spun-off company eventually became Yum Brands in 2002, and the restaurants have stayed
loyal by serving only Pepsi products.
"No one under 25 drinks coffee anymore.
Just Pepsi."
Unless you're a coin collector, 19 cents won't get you much nowadays.
But back in the summer of 1962, 19 cents could buy you a whole chili burger, a burrito, or
any of the other menu items at the first Taco Bell.
Those prices, apparently, remained stable until the '70s, when Taco Bell was no longer
a fledgling fast food chain, but one worth a whopping $6 million, Funding Universe notes.
A Newsnation report notes that the chain jacked up the menu prices to 25 cents an item in
the early '70s.
That's still a lot cheaper than $1.69 a crunchy taco costs as of August 2022, according to
the chain's online menu.
With $1.69, you could have bought all the menu items and then some at the first Taco Bell.
According to an old Taco Bell promo, a customer could pick any five items from the menu for
99 cents at a certain location.
On the nostalgic ad posted on the Facebook group "Taco Bell Please Bring Back the Bell
Beefer," a user commented,
"Oklahoma City had sales like this.
I was 16 driving my 1957 Chevy.
Gas was 29 cents per gallon.
Those [were] the good old days."