Taco Bell is making us live in Taco Hell

Posted on Sep 8, 2020

Taco Bell is back at it again spitting in the face of their customers by butchering their menu. After the travesty that was their recent decimation, they’ve once again taken the scalpel to their menu and removed classics. The damage wreaked this time is nowhere near as severe as last time, but what’s been removed is… We don’t even have the words.

It seems like Taco Bell is only doing this to be spiteful by now. We have no other explanation why they would continue to do this after the universally negative response last time. But fast food restaurants do not normally listen to their customers that well, and when they do, it tends to end in disaster.

Let’s just get this over with. I don’t know how much more heartbreak I can handle.

Mexican Pizza

Why are they getting rid of the Mexican Pizza? This is befuddling. The Mexican Pizza has been a strange little cornerstone of the Taco Bell menu since the 80s, the perfect entry-level option for children more familiar with pizza than tacos. It’s held on in its little side of the menu, forming a kind of symbol for what Taco Bell represented: cuisine almost, but not entirely, unlike real Mexican food. The ‘za could be described as a take on a tostada, but so twisted and warped in its execution it resembles neither its Mexican or Italian origins. Now it is gone, and Taco Bell falls deeper into blandness.

Pico de Gallo

Utterly befuddling. Somebody thought, even for a moment, “let’s take pico de gallo off the menu”, and they didn’t get fired on the spot - this shows that Yum! Brands is so detached from the real world it’s not even funny. Pico de gallo is the most fundamental and necessary salsa any Mexican restaurant must serve. The quality can tell you so much about the restaurant you’re about to enjoy, and what to expect from the rest of the meal.

Perhaps that’s why they’re taking it off. Our experiences with Taco Bell’s tomatoes have always been underwhelming, to say the least. But with its removal comes a removal of yet another vegetarian essential: menu items could be ordered ‘fresco style’, which would replace dairy-based sauces with pico de gallo. Now they cannot.

Shit like this is the reason why we briefly fell for a rumor that they were removing black beans from the menu, and it directly contradicts them swearing up and down that they were removing menu items to make way for vegetarian-friendly choices. What are they going to add? Everything is pointing towards some sort of expensive Beyond taco concoction and we are afraid.

Shredded chicken

Uh, what? Shredded chicken? Really? They’re taking off a whole fundamental protein from their menu. Now, we assume, all chicken will be in chunk form instead of shreds. But… what do they even gain from this? Chicken is more popular than ever, so why are they getting rid of what would probably be the cheaper chicken option for them to produce? I don’t know, this one is especially weird. The Mexican Pizza was a standby, and pico de gallo is essential… removing shredded chicken seems arbitrary. Like they really were throwing darts at a dart board.

It would be nice if they just replaced the shredded chicken like they’re doing with the pico de gallo, but no. They’re removing products that have it. Say goodbye to the Shredded Chicken Soft Taco, Burrito, and Quesadilla Melt.

New stuff

Executives swear it’s not all doom and gloom in the kingdom of the Bell. They led in the announcement of more menu mutilation with a few promises of new products.

First in line is the Chicken Chipotle Melt, a new value offering with chicken, chipotle sauce, and cheese. It sounds very boring, but not a bad decision to add more chicken to the value menu. Wait a second, it’s literally just the Shredded Chicken Quesadilla Melt with chunks instead!

They’ll also be making the Dragonfruit Freeze available nationwide - it sounds interesting and we’ll definitely be sure to catch that for a review once it’s available out here.

Green Sauce is making a return, which makes us feel nothing. When we saw this on their list, we thought it was going to be a return of the Verde salsa packets, but it’s a behind-the-counter addon option.

There is also the return of the Quesalupa, which is whatever. The chalupa shell is always stale and tastes like crap. This doesn’t matter. This isn’t going to bring potatoes back.

What the hell is any of this? They removed five products and the only ‘new’ food item here is a retooling. Complain all you want about Taco Bell being the same few products rearranged, but what happened to the Crunchwrap Sliders ? How about the Stuft Nacho, or the Rattlesnake Fries Burrito? We’d even take a rerun of the Triplelupa over this.

In conclusion

Taco Bell hates its customers. That’s all we can think of right now. We can only assume that they’ve been waiting to do a real menu teardown for ages and the pandemic has been their best chance to do so. Goodness knows they’re doing great business during this whole thing, while the rest of us live in the Hell they’ve created.

But it’s worth it for slightly faster drive-thru times, right? When there’s nothing that you want to actually eat at Taco Bell, that’s an astonishing zero seconds spent in drive-thru! What a brilliant play, Yum Brands. Good job.

Categories: food

Tagged: 2020 chicken menu changes pico de gallo taco bell