Photo Courtesy of Creative Commons
Glen Bell, founder of the Taco Bell chain of fast-food restaurants and a resident of Rancho Santa Fe, died in January at the age of 86.
Born in Lynwood, California, Bell was a marine during WWII. When the war was over, he returned to California and opened a hot dog stand in 1948. Located in San Bernardino California, it was called Bell’s Drive-In. Four years later, he sold the hot dog stand and built a second that offered both hot dogs and hamburgers. Soon after, he started selling tacos from a side window at the price of 19 cents a piece.
In 1954 and 1955, he opened three Taco Tias in Los Angeles area. Eventually, he sold those restaurants and opened four El Tacos with a new business partner in Long Beach.
Bell decided to go solo in 1962, selling the El Tacos to his partner. He opened his first Taco Bell that year. In 1964, Bell franchised his restaurant. The business thrived, and in 1978 Bell sold his 868-restaurant chain to PepsiCo in 1978 for $125 million in stock.
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One of our staffers, growing up in Southern California in the 1960s, remembers a summer that her paternal grandparents and aunts and uncles, all from Chicago, visited them. They were clamoring to try what they had heard was a Mexican “delicacy,” which seemed only available in Mexico and California.
Our staffer and her siblings rolled on the carpet, laughing themselves silly, because the relatives called it a “tay-co.” The family loaded everyone in a station wagon and headed for Taco Bell. The relatives were sold on the tay-cos, as, of course, were others. And Mexican fast-food places soon popped up across the entire country.
Glen Bell:
September 1923 - January 2010
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