Last updated 1/19
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Glen Bell, a fast food pioneer best known as the founder of Taco Bell, died *Saturday in his Rancho Santa Fe home. He was 86.
“The entire Taco Bell family of franchisees and employees are deeply saddened by the loss of the founder of Taco Bell. Glen Bell was a visionary and innovator in the restaurant industry, as well as a dedicated family man,” said Greg Creed, president of Irvine-based Taco Bell.
Bell’s involvement in the development of the fast food culture in Southern California is legendary.
Seeing the success the McDonald’s brothers had in selling burgers in San Bernardino, Bell launched his first restaurant– Bell’s Drive-In — in 1948 in the same city. Like other restaurant pioneers of his time, Bell wanted to take advantage of the booming Southern California car culture by offering drive-ins, streamlined menus and quick service.
Bell’s Drive-In served hamburgers and hot dogs. But he soon decided to differentiate his menu by adding Mexican fare. He also began experimenting with a drive-thru concept. Once he perfected his taco shell recipe, taco sauces and the convenient drive-thru concept, he was ready to introduce the tastes and textures of Mexican food to mainstream America.
Before launching Taco Bell in 1962, Bell helped establish Taco Tias in Los Angeles, El Tacos in the Long Beach area and Der Wienerschnitzel. John Galardi, who worked for Bell, eventually built Der Wienerschnitzel into the nation’s largest hot dog chain.
Another employee, Ed Hackbarth, took what he learned from Bell and opened a string of Mexican food restaurants. That chain would eventually be known as Del Taco.
Cutting ties with his other business partners, Bell founded the first Taco Bell in 1962 in Downey.
Soon after, eight more units opened in the Long Beach, Paramount and Los Angeles areas. He sold the first Taco Bell franchise in 1964. In 1978, Bell sold his 868 Taco Bell restaurants to PepsiCo for $125 million in stock. PepsiCo quickly moved to mainstream the brand, stripping units of the old logo, a Hispanic man dozing under a giant sombrero.
Orange County Supervisor Bill Campbell (3rd-District) operated Taco Bell franchises in Orange and Los Angeles counties for 25 years. His first unit opened in 1977, just before the PepsiCo acquisition. On Monday, he remembered Bell as a “gentle man” who helped build an empire that benefited young entrepreneurs.
“He was an innovator. I’m a very successful (businessman) because of him,” said Campbell, who eventually sold his 13 Taco Bell units. “It is a death of a legend.”
Taco Bell is now owned by Yum! Brands and is the largest Mexican fast-food chain in the nation. Taco Bell serves more than 36.8 million consumers each week in more than 5,600 restaurants in the U.S. More than 2 billion tacos and 1 billion burritos are served throughout the U.S. each year.
“His innovative business acumen started out of humble beginnings and created one of the nation’s largest restaurant chains in Taco Bell,” Creed said in a statement released by Taco Bell today. “Mr. Bell introduced an entire nation to the taco and Mexican cuisine.”
Christian Ziebarth, who blogs about Orange County Mexican restaurants, said critics often deride Taco Bell for being “one of the ultimate examples of mass-produced, soulless” fast-food restaurants.
However, the restaurant reviewer credits this “gringo” from California for trying to spread his love of Mexican food to the world.
“In Orange County where Mexican food is everywhere it may be hard to gage the impact Glen Bell has had on the culinary scene but in many other areas throughout the country and, in fact, the world, Taco Bell is the first taste people get of Mexican food,” said Ziebarth. “And they seem to like it.”
In 2008, Nation’s Restaurant News, a leading restaurant industry publication, named Glen Bell as the recipient of its Pioneer Award.
He is survived by his wife Martha, three sisters, Delores, Dorothy and Maureen; daughter, Kathleen; two sons, Gary and Rex; and four grandchildren, Brandon, Jordan, Valerie and Christopher. Private funeral services are being planned for family members.
Tell us: Do you have early memories of eating at Taco Bell? If so, write in and let us know.
*For the record: Taco Bell founder Glen Bell died Saturday. Because of wrong information released to the media, the day he died was incorrect in an earlier version of this story that appeared on ocregister.com.
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