Taco Bell
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This article documents a current event. Information may change rapidly as the event progresses. |
- For the restaurants of a similar name, see Taco Bill.
| Taco Bell Corp. | |
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| Type | Subsidiary of Yum! Brands, Inc. |
|---|---|
| Founded | Downey, California (March 21, 1962) |
| Headquarters | Irvine, California |
| Key people | Glen Bell (founder) |
| Industry | Quick Service Restaurants |
| Products | Tacos, burritos, and other Mexican-related fast food |
| Employees | 143,000 |
| Slogan | Think outside the bun. |
| Website | tacobell.com |
Taco Bell Corp., a fast-food restaurant chain, is a division of Yum! Brands, Inc. Taco Bell serves food items loosely based on Tex-mex cuisine, although it has now evolved into a cuisine of its own. It is headquartered in Irvine, California and has locations in the United States, Canada, and Iceland.
As of December 8, 2006, the company is in the middle of an ongoing investigation due to E. coli food poisoning in various stores. At this time, green onions, also known as scallions, are thought to be the source of the problem.
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[edit] General operations
Taco Bell encourages its diners to "think outside the bun", a reference to its advertising campaign that encourages 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. The "Bell Beefer" was also put into the Australian market as the "Big Bell" burger.
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. Some school lunch programs also offer Taco Bell items under the Taco Bell Express branding.
The Taco Bell name is also used under license by Kraft Foods, which offers a line of taco shells, spices, salsa, and other Mexican foods (including full meal kits) featuring the Taco Bell name in supermarkets nationwide.
According to the Taco Bell website, there are currently over 6,500 Taco Bell franchises operating in the 48 mainland United States, with 280 non-franchises.
Over the last several years, Yum! Brands, Inc. has been co-locating its various restaurant franchises (KFC, Long John Silver's, A&W and Pizza Hut). Combined Taco Bell/KFC locations are common.
[edit] Europe
KFC recently opened a Taco Bell restaurant in Hafnarfjörður, Iceland. This is the first Taco Bell Restaurant to be opened in Europe since the closure of their operation in England.
[edit] Australia
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 Australians were not used to a "fast food Mexican" concept like Taco Bell. The Taco Bell dog was used in commercials shown in Australia. Promotions such as 99-cent tacos were used to encourage customers to try Taco Bell.
All Taco Bell stores have now closed, due to their unpopularity in the Australian marketplace.
[edit] History
FUCK YOU!
[edit] Co-branding
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 Kentucky Fried Chicken. Taco Bell/Pizza Hut combinations are frequently called "Taco Huts" and Taco Bell/KFC combinations have been referred to as "Taco Chickens". Similarly, Taco Bell/Long John Silver's combinations are colloquially referred to as "Taco Silvers".
Sometimes, Taco Bell occupies the same building as a Pizza Hut and a KFC. This threesome is generally known as a "KenTaco Hut".
[edit] Big Bell Value Menu
In the late 1980s, 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-2000s. 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
[edit] Taco Bell Grande
In 2003, Yum! Brands introduced the Taco Bell brand into People's Republic of China. The Chinese Taco Bell restaurants are not fast-food restaurants like other Taco Bell restaurants are. Instead, they are full-service restaurants called Taco Bell Grande that are more analogus to a Mexican grill in the United States. In addition to the usual taco and burritos, Taco Bell Grande also serves other Mexican cuisine like albóndigas (meatball soup), tomatillo grilled chicken, fajitas, and alcoholic drinks such as Margaritas.
Currently the chain has three restaurants, two in Shenzhen and one in Shanghai.
[edit] Current E. Coli Outbreak
In early December 2006, 18 Taco Bells in New Jersey, New York, and the Philadelphia region temporarily closed after at least 62 confirmed cases of E. Coli sickness were linked to these locations. All 14 locations in Delaware also closed voluntarily. After closing, all stores disposed of their entire food supply in order to alleviate the potential for more spread. On December 10th, it was reported that all restaurants were free of E. Coli, and would reopen soon.
The E. Coli has been linked to contaminated green onions grown on a California farm. This incident can be compared to the spinach outbreak of summer 2006. It is also similar to the Hepatitis A outbreak that was spread through green onions by the now defunct Chi-Chi's chain of restaurants [1].
[edit] Notable employees
- José Padilla, suspected terrorist [citation needed]
- 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 NFL team.
- John C. Dvorak, former TechTV personality and current This Week In Tech pundit, worked there while attending college.
- Tyler Spencer, aka "Dick Valentine" from Electric Six.
- Mike Kennerty, guitar player for the All-American Rejects
[edit] Media References
- Film and television
- The 1993 movie Demolition Man contains 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." A portion of the film is set against Taco Bell's corporate headquarters in Irvine, California. The fight scene with Sylvester Stallone at a futuristic Taco Bell was actually at the outdoor break area at Raytheon’s secure "E" Building in El Segundo, California. It was the only outdoor location "futuristic" enough to do the scene at the time. In the German-language dub of the movie, all references to Taco Bell were changed to references to Yum! sister brand Pizza Hut; scenes displaying the Taco Bell logo or signs were either replaced or digitally edited to show a Pizza Hut logo instead.
- 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, "Spaghetti."
- The second season episode "Bender Gets Made" of the American animated television series Futurama mentions a hospital called "Taco Bellevue Hospital" wherein a chihuahua with a third eye is seen telling a woman her cyst is "grande".
- In the movie Kung Pow, master Tang sings a song about product placement with Taco Bell.
- In the 2001 movie Legally Blonde, the Taco Bell chihuahua commercial was briefly shown being watched by the main character's own chihuahua.
- In the 2004 motion picture Mean Girls, the character Regina is crying over her break-up with her boyfriend when her friend Karen offers to go to Taco Bell in order to feel better.
- In the 2004 motion picture White Chicks, the character Marcus Copeland, who is dressed like Tiffany Wilson, hands Brittany Wilson's dog over to the footboy saying: "[...] teach him how to say ‘Yo quiero Taco Bell!’".
- In the Family Guy episode "8 Simple Rules for Buying My Teenage Daughter", Stewie makes a mention of Taco Bell.
- In The Venture Bros. episode "Trial of the Monarch", Dr. Orpheus warns Brock not to be too hasty entering the restroom because he "had Taco Bell for lunch."
- In Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, a scene depicts Ricky Bobby's family dining on many fast food items, including Taco Bell.
- In one GEICO commercial, the Taco Bell Chihuahua is seen. He says, "Oh great, a talking gecko!"
- Music
- In 1979, the rock band Supertramp sang, "I'm in this dumb hotel near the Taco Bell without a hope in hell..." in their song "Gone Hollywood".
- In 1995, the rock band Primus sang about Taco Bell's Seven Layer Burrito in their Grammy-nominated[1] song "Wynona's Big Brown Beaver". On the same album, the "De Anza Jig" describes a young Les Claypool as "Hanging out at Jack in the Box but eat[sic] at Taco Bell."
- In the 2001 song "Danger! High Voltage!" by Electric Six, they make a reference to there being a "Fire in the Taco Bell!".
- Zox's song "Homebody" makes reference to eating at Taco Bell and getting high.
- "Weird Al" Yankovic's song "I'll Sue Ya" references Taco Bell by saying he sued "Taco Bell, because I ate half a million chalupas, and I got fat!".
- The title track from Midnight Brown's 2004 alblum, 2084, refrenced "In the future all resturants are Taco Bells". Which is also a reference to the 1993 film Demolition Man.
[edit] Trivia
- There is Yakov Smirnoff joke - "There are no Taco Bells in Russia. They didn't like the slogan, 'Run for the border'."
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ List of Grammy Nominees. CNN (1996-01-04). Retrieved on 2006-10-10.
[edit] External links
- Official Taco Bell website
- (Chinese) Taco Bell Grande
- [2]
- Lessons In Taco Bell Trouble Newsday.com
- Taco Bell Threat Widens - Depot Hill Media
- Family Files Suit Against Taco-Bell - Newsday.com
- Taco-Bell Sued By Sick Boy With E-Coli - FORBES
| Yum! Brands, Inc. |
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Pizza Hut | Taco Bell | KFC | A&W Restaurants | Long John Silver's | WingStreet | East Dawning (东方既白) |
Categories: Current events | Articles with unsourced statements | Yum! Brands | Fast-food Mexican restaurants | Food companies of the United States | Fast-food franchises | Fast-food chains of the United States | Fast-food chains of Canada | Companies established in 1962 | Companies based in Orange County, California | Restaurants in California
