Discontinued Taco Bell Items You Probably Forgot Existed
The Taco Bell food you enjoy today is probably not the same grub you enjoyed in your younger years. That's not a huge surprise — menus change. Fast food establishments are constantly tweaking their offerings to figure out the best concoctions for their customers. Sometimes a joint will try new and different things to remain in step with the ever-evolving tastes of the world... and then there's Taco Bell. The Border has tried to keep up with those trend-setting tastes; some have hit, and others... not so much. Not all of these misses were epic fails, however. Some of these are a bit of a mystery as to why they disappeared. In fact, you might take a look at this list and get a craving for an old favorite you forgot even existed. Here's a look at some Taco Bell items that probably slipped your memory, and your taste buds.
Bell Beefer
If you tend to think that Taco Bell and McDonald's aren't exactly rivals because of the different varieties of food offered, you're not wrong. There was a time, however, when Taco Bell actually thought... wait for it... inside the bun. Get it? Anyway, Taco Bell offered a burger; kinda. The Bell Beefer existed on the Taco Bell menu from the 1970s until — depending on the location — the 1990s. If you're thinking, "That's a sloppy joe!" You're not completely wrong. The Bell Beefer was everything Taco Bell puts on a taco only on a bun; meat, lettuce, tomato, and cheese.
How did it taste? You know the old adage "Don't order a steak at a seafood joint?" Yep. The major problem was the bun; it ranged from "I'm never going to get this taste of my mouth" to "prison riot starter." The meat and toppings were actually fine, and in theory it should have worked without a hitch. But a combination of not enough turnover led to buns that sat around which likely led to the Bell Beefer exiting the menu.
BLT Soft taco
History books will write about that period in the 1990s when someone decided that bacon went on everything, and Taco Bell didn't know that tacos aren't included in "everything." You've probably heard of a BLT, but if this is your first day on the planet, welcome! A BLT is a bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich. It's at least as old as the the late 1800s or early 1900s. The key ingredient to a BLT is the word that didn't make the title at Taco Bell: sandwich. You'll note that despite having the taco, Mexico didn't invent a BLT taco because... eww. But that didn't stop Taco Bell from introducing one in 1995.
How did it taste? There's a simple reason you don't eat BLT tacos at home; they don't work. There's nothing about the BLT taco that had any value whatsoever, from Taco Bell's inconsistent bacon (it might be limp, or way too crunchy), to the ranch sauce that felt really out of place, this was a taste fail all around. Taco Bell never heard the one about learning from history's mistakes and brought back the BLT in a Crunchwrap in in 2014. Shockingly (not shockingly), they didn't work then either.
Chicken Club Burrito
If you thought the idea of a BLT as a taco was kind of weird, then hold your horses. The good folks of Taco Bell looked just a little bit further down in the sandwich dictionary to come up with another creation at the same time the BLT was released in 1995; the Chicken Club Burrito. Club sandwiches are served on toast in three levels, and Taco Bell's club is a burrito — a single-floor burrito — so there was no toast at all.
How did it taste? It's a freakin' chicken burrito; with bacon because of course. And it had ranch as well because Taco Bell bought the bacon and the ranch at the same place so they thought they went together (probably). So it's just a chicken burrito with bacon on it, and a ranch sauce that was either too overpowering or just not there. This was actually worse than the BLT Taco, (although, it was really pretty similar).
Bacon Club Chalupa
Taco Bell learned their lesson and licked their wounds, never to return to the world of bacon again. Until about 13 years later. If the "bacon" item didn't work, and the "club" item didn't work, maybe the problem was they needed to be together? In 2008, Taco Bell decided to give it a whirl and came up with the Bacon Club Chalupa. They marketed the item as a great way to pick up guys. No, seriously. Let's just skip the whole explanation and just acknowledge that waving a Bacon Club Chalupa around a singles bar ain't gonna work.
How did it taste? Just like the chicken club burrito was just a chicken burrito, the Bacon Club Chalupa was just a freakin' chicken chalupa. What it came down to was how you liked the chalupa shell. Some liked it, everyone hated it when they were not fresh, but surprisingly the bacon wasn't nearly as bad in the chalupa shell as it was in the burrito shell. The famed Bacon Club Chalupa did come back for a very limited time in 2015, but it went away again because ultimately bacon doesn't belong on tacos. Or burritos. Or chalupas.
Extreme nachos
Language changes, often. Sometimes words stick, and they become universal colloquialisms; if Taco Bell makes some "bad" nachos, that's a good thing. But other times words just represent a very specific time frame that is dated, odd, and decidedly not on fleek. Can you believe that there was a time in fast food jargon when the word "extreme" meant either onions and peppers or red chips? In Taco Bell's case it's the latter. Behold, the Extreme Nachos.
How did it taste? Look, Taco Bell's Extreme Nachos were just nachos — red nachos — with guacamole, sour cream, and "wild sauce" — and in this case, "wild" meant "hot" — see how confusing the 90s were? Overall they were extremely blah; especially when the Nachos BellGrande were sitting right next to them on the menu. It simply was too gimmicky to ever last, and it didn't. Granted the entire "Wild" menu came with the "limited time" caveat, but this didn't have a chance of ever making the menu on a permanent basis.
Seafood Salad
For something that seems to be more of a seasonal or an "all or nothing" approach, a number of fast food joints try to... um... jump into the deep end of seafood — Taco Bell included. If you're thinking fish tacos, great idea... except that's not what they did. Taco Bell went in a completely different direction and decided to also enter the veggie department. Welcome to the wonderful world of Taco Bell's Seafood Salad. Positioned as an alternative to fried fish sandwiches, Taco Bell didn't want anyone to settle on one measly sea creature — oh no, they gave you the entire ocean on a bed of lettuce. The salad came with shrimp, whitefish, and snow crab. All served in a delicious, edible shell bowl.
How did it taste? If the idea of eating seafood at Taco Bell isn't appealing to you, congratulations! You share similar taste buds to the average 1980s Taco Bell customer. The big problem (well, biggest) was the shrimp. The shrimp was a bit too much like eating sea monkeys. And there's really nothing wrong with whitefish, as it's technically pretty much the same thing every other fast food joint offers in the fish department, however this was a fish without a fried breading. This salad simply did not work at all.
Enchirito
Some items that have disappeared make sense, and then there's the Enchirito. The Enchirito gets its name from what it is; basically a corn shelled burrito and an enchilada combined. It was a beef and bean burrito (with onions) smothered in a red sauce — really an enchilada sauce — and cheese, with three olives on top. It came served in this dandy little tin foil container that fit it perfectly.
How did it taste? If you lined up every single discontinued item at every single fast food establishment, the Enchirito would be way up toward the top. This thing was amazing. So much of this worked, even down to the nice touch of the olives on top, it's easy to see why people loved it. The Enchirito first disappeared in 1993, and then returned in 1999 for quite a while, before disappearing again for good in 2013. The problem was that the Enchirito's return wasn't the same as the original. Gone was the golden shell and the olives, and most unforgivable the awesome tin foil container. Some things simply aren't worth the return if you're not going to do it right.
Chicken Caesar Grilled Stuft Burrito
A lot of Taco Bell's ideas were in the "think outside the box" mold; fitting considering their "think outside the bun" ad campaign. Problem is that sometimes when you're outside the box — or bun — you're in the wrong hemisphere. Taco Bell tried to take a salad and put it in a burrito: the Chicken Caesar Grilled Stuft Burrito. The concoction featured chicken (duh), romaine lettuce, a Caesar sauce (think ranch more than Caesar) and "crunchy red strips" (their words) to give it that "I'm really not a Caesar Salad!" feel.
How did it taste? The Caesar sauce was simply terrible. It never tasted fresh, and the romaine lettuce never held up well in the burrito (Taco Bell uses iceberg on all other dishes). This wasn't very good at all, but that didn't stop Taco Bell from testing it in a Crunchwrap in 2016. It didn't make it out of its probationary period, probably because despite how great the Crunchwrap is, putting a Caesar salad in it is a bad idea.
Olives
You may be hard-pressed to find olives in authentic Mexican food, but believe it or not... (I hope you're sitting down) Taco Bell isn't exactly authentic. It's worth noting that if you did your basic internet search for "authentic Mexican cuisine" you'd find plenty of people saying that their mom or grandmother always put olives in certain dishes. Maybe that's where Taco Bell got the notion, but regardless, olives used to be aplenty at Taco Bell. From the beloved Enchirito to the Burrito Supreme to the Mexican Pizza, there used to be olives at Taco Bell. Then one day they were gone, just like that.
There's a running theme on the internet, as strong as the Nickelback hatred, that Taco Bell is more bland than it used to be. Is it? Well, taste is not a universal thing, but what is known is that black olives are salty and sour, and those are two tastes that can liven up a dish. Is the Mexican pizza better with black olives? Probably. Did Taco Bell used to taste better? Probably. What is certain is no one was complaining about black olives on their Mexican dishes, and overall they probably added to the flavor.
The original breakfast
Taco Bell realized early on that there was a market to sell tacos in the morning. In some areas of the country (especially college towns) Taco Bells were opened 24 hours a day so you could grab a few soft tacos before that 9 a.m. class. They also (probably) realized that not everyone eats like a college kid so they better come up with some real "traditional" breakfast items. In the early 90s, they did just that. Way before the 2013 introduction of Taco Bell's breakfast, they took a stab at the egg and burrito thing with a full-on breakfast menu.
How did it taste? There's a reason you probably never heard of it until now. First, not every location had the breakfast. Also, they were heavy on the bacon (this was that weird 90s bacon time, remember?). And they had an egg McMuffin. Really! Well, they didn't call it that, but you can see it right in their ad — and that's what it was. And if you thought getting seafood at a taco joint was a bad idea, just imagine how awful that was, because it was worse. Taco Bell's ad wizards probably forgot about the 90s breakfast when they fashioned a campaign mocking the McMuffin. Regardless of how you feel about the 2000's dive into breakfast, Taco Bell's '90s adventure was much worse; it didn't even make the company history page. But the internet never forgets, Taco Bell... the internet never forgets.