It’s the end of an era in Scottsdale. This Friday, one of the original Taco Bell restaurants, complete with its mission-style architecture and vintage striped trash cans, will close its doors.
Taco Bell fans all across the country are mourning the location’s demise. When it opened back in the 1960s, it was just the 31st Taco Bell location — today there are over 8,000.
Gustavo Arellano, columnist for the LA Times and the author of “Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America,” joined The Show to talk about the legacy of Taco Bell locations like Store Number 31.
Full conversation
SAM DINGMAN: Gustavo, good morning.
GUSTAVO ARELLANO: Gracias.
DINGMAN: So, Gustavo, I discovered this morning that Taco Bell superfans call themselves Taco Bellians. Were you aware of this?
ARELLANO: Who on earth is a Taco Bell fan? Obviously enough people that they call themselves something as silly as Taco Bellians. And it’s funny for me because here in Southern California, you grew up with Taco Bell and the rivalry of fast food chains. Is it Taco Bell or a smaller chain called Del Taco? I think there’s some Del Tacos in Arizona.
DINGMAN: Oh, yeah. Yes, we’ve got Del Taco.
ARELLANO: So then you folks know what’s up. Del Taco is superior, but Del Taco does not have the cult of Taco Bell. So my respect to the fans, my respect to the company.
And this is why something like the closing of a location — an original location like in Scottsdale — is making so much noise, so to speak, and drawing in all these pilgrims who want to go there, want to get their Enchirito, Crunchwrap Supreme or whatever they offer now, before it’s too late, from one of the OG spots out in the Valley.
DINGMAN: Yeah, Taco Bellians or pilgrims, perhaps. I should say this show officially has no position in the great debate between Del Taco and Taco Bell. But let’s talk a little bit about how that cult was developed. A lot has been made of this Taco Bell 31’s mission style architecture: The stucco walls, the clay roof tiles, the archways.
Of course, for folks who don’t know, Taco Bell was not designed and built by a Mexican person. It was Glen Bell, who originally founded the chain. How accurate would you say that architectural vision that he had was to actual Mexican taco culture back in the ’60s?
ARELLANO: It absolutely was not. But it was 1,000% accurate to the imagined truth of what the American Southwest was at this point. So that style of architecture — the arches, the faux adobe, the clay roofs, everything that you described and also just being very small — it’s what’s called Spanish Revival. And more specifically ties into something called the Spanish fantasy heritage.
This is a historical trend or really psychosis, written best by the author Carrie McWilliams, where across the American Southwest — of course, it used to be part of Mexico, gets conquered by the United States. Through the war, the Mexicans and the native Mexicans were described as ugly, as disgusting, as necessary to be vanquished.
But then a few decades later, all of a sudden, the Anglos who came in, they’re like, “Oh, well, you know, the Mexicans back then, they had it easier. It was always about fiesta. It was always about party. It was always about this great, great food.” So you had architecture and also the rise of Mexican food to try to match that nostalgia of a Mexico that really never existed except in the minds of these Anglos.
And so Taco Bell is perfect. Those Taco Bell locations at least, the original ones, are perfect in encapsulating that psychosis.
DINGMAN: Well, speaking of what you were just referencing there, Gustavo, in the coverage at least that I’ve seen about this location closing, a lot of the nostalgia for Taco Bell has come from white people. Joel McHale, for example, said that every brick of the restaurant should be put in the Smithsonian. I’m sure he’s just being facetious.
But what do folks you’ve talked to in the Mexican culinary community make of things like the Crunchwrap Supreme or Doritos Locos Taco? Are there Mexican American Taco Bellians as well?
ARELLANO: Oh God yeah. My cousins, for that matter, they swear by the Crunchwrap Supreme. They swear that Taco Bell is better than Del Taco, and it’s not actually bad Mexican food.
Yes, there has been much hay about how Taco Bell is all over the world, but just has never been able to land even one successful restaurant in Mexico. That’s never going to change. What’s interesting to me — at least from Southern California and also just looking on social media — OK, maybe the people who are going to the one in Scottsdale or mourning the loss of that Scottsdale location are older white folks, older gabachos who grew up eating there. That’s one thing.
But the fan base for Taco Bell nowadays is very much diverse, very much like hipster, hip-hop, all of that. It is very much attuned to that TikTok culture.
And that to me is what’s so incredible about that Taco Bell story, because you have like the older … Taco Bell is of that generation of here in Southern California would be like El Torito. Out in the Phoenix area, you would have your Macayo’s, like those sit-down places that was a specific for a certain generation, but it never evolved with the times. And so that type of Mexican food is on its way out.
Taco Bell has never been a museum piece. They have always been evolving. They’ve always kept up with culture. Whoever their advertising, the ad people are, are absolute geniuses. They should be in the Smithsonian.
Because everything from — you’ll remember that April Fool’s joke in the ’90s where Taco Bell offered to buy the Liberty Bell, which created so much chaos — to the “Yo quiero Taco Bell.” They’re absolute geniuses out there.
So then in recent years, Taco Bell has started to embrace its own history. The very first Taco Bell location —
DINGMAN: Gustavo, I’m so sorry. We’re actually out of time. I know there’s so much more to explore here, we’ll pick it up with you another time. That is Gustavo Arellano. He is a columnist for the LA Times. Gustavo, thank you so much.
ARELLANO: Taco Bell.
