Before Taco Bell became one of America’s biggest fast-food chains, founder Glen Bell was searching for a way to stand out in Southern California’s crowded burger market. While running a hamburger stand in San Bernardino, Bell noticed long lines forming outside Mitla Cafe across the street and became fascinated by the tacos the restaurant was serving. Simon Whistler of the Today I Found Out YouTube channel and the Brain Food Show podcast shares how Bell learned taco-making techniques from the family behind Mitla Cafe and helped turn hard-shell tacos into an American fast-food phenomenon.
📖 Read the Episode Transcript
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories.
Have you ever wondered where the bell comes from? In
Taco Bell. Here to tell the story is Simon Whistler
from the Today I Found Out YouTube channel and its sister,
The Brain Food Show podcast. Also contributing to this story
is Gustavo Arolano. He’s the author of Ask a Mexican(00:33):
and Taco Usa, How Mexican Food Conquered America. Let’s take
a listen.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
In nineteen forty six, Glenn Bell left the Marine Corps
at the age of twenty three. Like many of his comrades,
he was looking forward to post war activities and settling
into a career when he returns home. Lucky for him,
the fast food business was booming and Bell had an
idea a hot dog stands. It was called Bell’s Drive
In and it was set up in San Bernardino and a
cultural town in California. Bell didn’t know the first thing
(01:03):
about running a hot dog stand, but that didn’t matter.
He learned as he went along. The first stand did well,
and when Bell sold it in nineteen fifty two, he
was able to go on to make a bigger, better
stand that sold both hot dogs and hamburgers. At this point,
Bell wasn’t exactly thinking outside of the bun. He did
manage to start his second stands before the McDonald’s brothers
(01:24):
announced their fast food venture, also in San Bernardino. You
can probably guess how it went. Since McDonald’s is still
selling burgers and Bell’s business isn’t. It was likely that
because of the increased competition, Bell decided to explore other
menu options. Feeling the pressure to stand out from the crowd,
Bell did start thinking outside the bun and landed on
Mexican food.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
Americans wanted Mexican food, Americans wanted authentic Mexican food.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
A big fan of Mexican takeout himself, he thought that
Mexican food lovers needed a fast food option, as people
often had to wait a while to get a good
taco on the go. When Bell began scheming, in his
own words, my plan for experimenting with tacos was to
obtain a location in a Mexican neighborhood. That way, if
tacos were successful, potential competitors would write it off to
(02:11):
the location and assume that the idea wouldn’t sell anywhere else.
With his new location secured, Bell began with what he
knew hot dogs. Both regular hot dogs and chili dogs
were on the menu, and the chili dogs had a
secret sauce on them that would later become the basis
for the taco sauce we know today.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
How did Taco bell sauce packets get so saucy?
Speaker 2 (02:33):
While those were selling, Bell was researching tacos and coming
up with ways to produce them quickly. Many Mexican food
restaurants stuffed the shells then fried them, which was partially wired,
took so long. Bell decided he would fry the shells
and then stuff them, meaning he could have fried shells
ready to go before the customers lined up. It took
a while to work out all the kinks, but Bell
soon hit upon a deep friab that suited his needs.
(02:55):
At the taco’s debut, they cost nineteen cents each about
one dollar and six one sense today. According to Bell,
I’ll never forget the first taco customer, because naturally, I
was really concerned about his reaction. He was dressed in
a suit, and does he bit into the taco, rejuice
ran down his sleeve and dripped onto his tie. I thought,
we’ve lost this one, but he came back amazingly enough
(03:16):
and said that was good, I’ll take another one.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
So I bought the biography of the man who invented
Taco Bell. His name was Glenn Bell. So I’m reading
in his biography and he admits that he got the
idea for Taco Bell from a restaurant across the street
from his Hamburger and Hotdogs stand off Route sixty six
in San Bernardino. It was a Mexican restaurant and he
would just see lines of people for these tacos, and
so every night, after he’d close shop, he’d go across
(03:42):
the street, order some tacos, take them back to his place,
and try to decipher how those tacos were made. So
he admits to all of this. So Blen Bell opens
up his taco stand now right across the street from
me La Cafe, then opens two other chains before creating
Taco Bell in nineteen sixty four, the city of Downey.
It’s a suburb of Los Angeles. So I go to Irene,
(04:03):
I say, is all of this true? She’s like, yeah,
we remember him. We would always see this white man
coming in every night, and we could tell he’s trying
to rip off our recipe. So eventually my father in
law goes up to him and say, look, if you’re
gonna rip me off, at least rip me off right.
So he invited him into his kitchen to teach him
how to make tacos properly. And so I asked Irene, well,
(04:24):
does it bother your family that Glenn Bell created a
multi billion dollar empire off of your family’s heritage? And
she’s like, eh, good for him. You know, he’s been around.
They’ve been around for like sixty some years. We’ve been
around for eighty years. But besides, our tacos are way better.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Than His business was booming. Bell ended up opening another
stands in Barstow that sold tacos and shakes, and a
few years later he opened three stands dedicated tacos, which
he called Taco Tia. Obviously, it didn’t end there. Bell
became more and more ambitious. Even when the three stores
started raking in fifty thousand dollars a year each, he
(05:00):
was happy to give them up for the chance to
expand into Los Angeles. The move was risky. Bell bought
two lots to build restaurants on, but in doing so
he became strapped for cash to solve the problem. He
ended up partnering with a few of the La Rams
footballers who were training near a Taco tia and loved
the foot. Together they were able to build several stores
and make a profit in their first year, quite the
(05:21):
accomplishment for a single restaurants, less alone a few. In
their debut, the restaurants were called El Tacos. However, Bell
wanted a business that he solely owned, so he built
essentially the exact same restaurants but rebranded it as Taco
Bell in nineteen sixty two in Downey. He followed it
up with eight other small Taco Bells on Long Beach.
He then set about franchising the restaurants, with the first
(05:43):
Taco Bell franchise purchased in nineteen sixty four. This first franchise,
run by an old LA policeman, did unbelievably well, and
the owner was reportedly bringing in around ten thousand dollars
per month, which is around seventy four thousand dollars to day.
Almost right away after that raging success, it’s no wones
other people were clamoring to own at Tacko bell a
(06:03):
mere three years later, in nineteen sixty seven, they opened
their one hundredth restaurants in Anaheim. Just three years after that,
the company went public with three hundred and twenty five
restaurants in nineteen seventy. What had once been a tiny
hot dog stand had evolved into a huge Mexican fast
food company in just a little over a decade.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
It’s very easy to make fun of, you know, non
Mexicans and their relationship with Mexican food. I’m sure you’ve
seen recently that Paul showed that Taco Bell was the
best Mexican restaurant in the United States, and people are crying,
Oh my god, Americans are so dumb with their Mexican food. No, no, no, no,
you are discrediting Americans. The main movers in making Mexican
(06:47):
food more quote unquote authentic have always been Americans. They
have always been pushing for the next great quote unquote
authentic thing. And by the way, the for people who
say Hartshell Tackles not real Mexican food, the recipe has
not changed since nineteen thirty eight, and it came with
the founders of meatlaf from where they came from the
state of Haylisco in Mexico. So it’s a hard shell
(07:09):
taco with ground beef, green cabbage, read tomatoes, and then
the blizzard of yellow cheese. And then you ask them, well,
you know, you don’t have yellow cheese in Mexico. Yeah,
in the nineteen thirties there was no Mexican cheese up
in Mexico, so you had to make do with what
you have and then you bite it. It’s like eating, living,
breathing tasty history. It’s amazing.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Taco Bell celebrated its fiftieth anniversary in twenty twelve, two
years after the death of its Foundza and now most
some five thousand, six hundred restaurants, three hundred and fifty franchisees,
and over one hundred and fifty thousand employees.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
People love to trash Taco Bell. I will defend it
only in the sense that I really view it as
an ambassador for Mexican food. So it opened up in
places that no Mexicans were. It wetted people’s appetite for
something that they knew was going to be better, that
was following on their paths.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Bonus facts. Taco Bell almost started out as a mini
golf course, thinking about what people might want to invest in.
After the war, Bell thought they might want to return
to fun pre war activities like mini golf. However, Lee
didn’t have quite enough money to run a golf course,
so he opted for the hot dog stand instead, and incidentally,
a man named ed Hackbarth was employed to run the
(08:22):
second Taco and Shakestand in Barstow. He went on to
found Dell Taco You’re kid O. Taco Bell, the popular
taco bell chihuahua was featured in many Taco Bell ads
from nineteen ninety seven. Her name was Gidget, and she
became so popular that they started making toys in her likeness.
When they stopped using the dog in two thousand, revenue
dropped by six percent, the largest decrease in Taco bell history.
(08:44):
It’s thought that they stopped using Gidget because she was
portrayed as a stereotype. Gidget was euthanized at the age
of fifteen after a stroke in two thousand and nine.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
And a terrific job when the production editing and storytelling
by our own Greg Hangler. And what a story you heard,
My goodness, it all started with Glenn Bell. Now we
know where the word bell comes from. He couldn’t do
the old put putt thing, So he decided to do
food stands instead, and sooner or later had this insight
that he wanted to start doing Mexican fast food because
(09:17):
he’d been such a fan of Mexican take out the
story of the marine who turned his hot dog stand
into America’s largest Mexican food chain. Here on our American Stories.
Discover more real American voices.
