Taco Bell
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Headquarters of Taco Bell in Irvine, California
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| Subsidiary | |
| Industry | Restaurants |
| Genre | Fast food restaurant |
| Founded | March 21, 1962 Downey, California |
| Headquarters | 1 Glen Bell Way, Irvine, California |
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Number of locations
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7,000 restaurants |
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Area served
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Mainly United States and Canada |
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Key people
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Glen Bell, Founder Brian Niccol, CEO |
| Products | Tacos, burritos, and other Tex-Mex cuisine-related fast food |
| Revenue |
 $1.988 billion (2015) |
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Number of employees
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175,000+ |
| Parent | Yum! Brands |
| Website | www |
Taco Bell is an American chain of fast-food restaurants based in Irvine, California. A subsidiary of Yum! Brands, Inc., they serve a variety of Tex-Mex foods, including tacos, burritos, quesadillas, nachos, other specialty items, and a variety of "value menu" items. Taco Bell serves more than 2 billion customers each year in 7,000 restaurants, more than 80 percent of which are owned and operated by independent franchisees and licensees.
Taco Bell was founded by Glen Bell, who first opened a hot dog stand called Bell's Drive-In in San Bernardino, California in 1946 when he was 23 years old. In 1950, he opened Bell's Hamburgers and Hot Dogs in San Bernardino's West Side barrio. According to Gustavo Arellano, author of Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America, Bell watched long lines of customers at a Mexican restaurant called the Mitla Cafe, located across the street, which attracted a dedicated customer base for its hard-shelled tacos. Bell began eating there regularly, attempting to reverse-engineer the recipe, and eventually won the confidence of the proprietors such that they allowed him to see how the tacos and other foods were prepared. In late 1951 or early 1952, he took what he had learned and opened a new stand, this time selling tacos under the name of Taco-Tia.
Over the next few years, Bell owned and operated a number of restaurants in southern California including four called El Taco. Bell sold the El Tacos to his partner and built the first Taco Bell in Downey in 1962. On the night of Nov. 19, 2015, the original Taco Bell building in Downey was moved to the Taco Bell Corporate Headquarters in Irvine, CA. In 1962, he sold Taco-Tia. Kermit Becky, a former Los Angeles police officer, bought the first Taco Bell franchise from Glen Bell in 1964, and located it in Torrance. The company grew rapidly, and by 1967, the 100th restaurant opened at 400 South Brookhurst in Anaheim. In 1968, its first franchise location east of the Mississippi River opened in Springfield, Ohio. In 1970, Taco Bell went public with 325 restaurants. In 1978, PepsiCo purchased Taco Bell from Glen Bell.
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Wikipedia