What was taco bell called before

Soon enough he was ingratiating himself with the owners of Mitla Cafe. And not long after, he was in their kitchen learning how the ground beef was stuffed into a corn tortilla, deep fried and then loaded with cheese, tomatoes and lettuce. At Mitla Cafe, ground beef is stuffed into corn tortillas, which are deep fried Credit: Ivana Larrosa. He made a fry basket out of chicken wire and started trying to figure out how to mass-produce hard taco shells.

And in November , he added tacos to the menu of his hamburger spot. Soon, his predominantly white clientele began trying these "take-ohs", as non-Mexicans apparently first pronounced them, which, at 19 cents each, were a hit. A few years later, he opened a couple of new quick-service restaurants that offered only tacos. The taco stands went through different names — Taco Tia, El Taco — before he settled on an eponymous name for his taco eateries.

The man's name was Glen Bell and Taco Bell had been born. Today, there are more than 7, Taco Bell locations across 30 countries. And there is one Mitla Cafe, still quietly producing delicious hard-shell tacos the way it has for decades. The family of Salvador and Lucia Rodriguez, now in their third generation, are running the place as a community of regular patrons crunch, munch and sip their way through a largely unchanged menu of crispy tacos, gooey cheese enchiladas and potent margaritas.

Mitla Cafe has a place in the history of Mexican American cuisine as the first eatery to serve hard-shell tacos in the United States. And also for being the unlikely inspiration that launched a billion hard-shell tacos into corporate south-of-the-border flavoured fast food hegemony. For more than eight decades, Mitla Cafe has been anchored along Mt Vernon Boulevard, a swath of Route 66, which is like a lifetime for a restaurant.

How and why Mitla has managed such longevity is miraculous. Mitla Cafe serves a menu of crispy tacos, gooey cheese enchiladas and potent margaritas Credit: Ivana Larrosa. Why it has largely been so unheralded outside of San Bernardino was a mystery to me.

I decided to go to the source to find out its secret. I swung open the door to Mitla Cafe around noon on a Tuesday. What felt like a ghost town outside was an improbable party inside. The high-ceilinged interior was near capacity with lunching locals. The tacos here are fried to order; when mine arrived, they were warm and crispy. The oddity at Mitla Cafe are the tacos themselves: hard-shell tacos have been so uncool for so long that most lovers of Mexican food consider them to be "non-authentic".

And that's mostly because of Taco Bell, which made hard-shell tacos ubiquitous in the mostly white American suburbs. Dismiss the hard-shell taco at your own peril, though, as you'll be erasing an important era of Mexican American history. It probably ought to be displayed at the Smithsonian. He's been working here on and off since he was in high school.

It's only been the last few years that I've played a more active role in the restaurant. And, then added with a chuckle, "We don't travel together. If you come here enough, you'll start to see the regulars. We have people coming here for decades. These two gentlemen over here are brothers; their mom is one of our cooks. So, they've grown up here.

We have a connection to the community, where there are two or three generations coming in together. It was the earliest Mitla Cafe menu they still have — from the late s, he speculated.

Aside from the prices and a few nods to gringo eating habits, such as pancakes and burgers, not much has changed. Mitla Cafe made the US' first hard-shell tacos — with ground beef, cheddar cheese, tomatoes and iceberg lettuce Credit: Ivana Larrosa. Mitla would have been just fine with or without the Taco Bell connection. He called his hot dog stand "Bell's Drive-In. That same year, the first Taco Bell opened in Downey, California. Taco Bell has tried to enter the Mexican market twice and failed both times Although Americans view Taco Bell's food as great-tasting "Mexican" food, Residents in Mexico view Taco Bell's food differently.

Taco Bell first tried to enter the Mexican market in , but its restaurants all closed within two years. Taco Bell tried again in to successfully open a restaurant in Mexico City. This time, the company made sure to heavily emphasize the fact that Taco Bell's food is very much "Americanized;" thus, adding French fries to the menu. Unfortunately, this strategy also failed, and the Mexico City Taco Bell closed down in For those who have experienced authentic, Mexican food, the taste of Taco Bell's menu does not go over well, and for Mexico's residents, this is the case — they want nothing to do with Taco Bell.

The first and oldest Taco Bell built by the founder himself is still open for business under the original logo. The oldest McDonald's is actually not the first ever opened, but the third.

Built in , just 13 years after the McDonald's brothers opened the first one, the Downey location still is in operation after enduring a two year, full-scale renovation back in to repair earthquake damage, install a drive-thru window, and add indoor seating. Glen Bell never fully parted from the world of hamburger joints, and this oddly enough coincidence is proof. Bell popularized the hard taco shell Bell and other fans of tacos at the time grew tired of how long it took to wait for a taco to be prepared by a Mexican restaurant because the cooks took time to warm the tortilla, cook the meat, and stuff the taco with vegetables and cheeses.

Bell knew there had to be an easier and time-efficient way to prepare a taco, leading to his invention of the hard shell. Bell experimented with a deep fryer, folding the tortilla to appear bent, dipping it in cooking oil, and tossing it into the deep fryer.

His invention popularized the hard shell taco while also speeding up the preparation process. What they don't know is how long it took Taco Bell and Frito-Lays to launch the sensational product. What started out as brainstorming ideas for a co-branded product led to months of testing the product and making modifications.

The difficult thing was to give the taco shell the same texture and flavor of a nacho cheese Doritos chip while using a yellow corn taco shell. After three years of back and forth adjustments to perfect the product, Taco Bell launched its Doritos Locos Tacos to the public in March Discounted offers are only available to new members.

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