Taco Bell Founder Dies at 86

Glen W. Bell Jr. opened the first Taco Bell in Downey, California, in 1962.

By Courtney Rubin |  Jan 19, 2010

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Glen W. Bell Jr., whose inspiration to put tacos on the drive-in menu
 created the 5,600-unit Taco Bell chain, died Sunday, the company 
announced on its website.

The entrepreneur was 86, and had suffered from Parkinson's disease since 1985.  No cause of 
death was released.

Bell—who spent his childhood peddling produce—decided he wanted
 his own food stand after spending a summer in high school in Washington
 working with a great aunt, learning how to bake blackberry pies and then
 selling them as Mrs. Dye's Homemade Pies. (He took home half of the
 $3,000 profit.)

After studying the successful McDonald's restaurants, in 1948 Bell
 opened Bell's Drive-In in San Bernardino, California. He began by serving the
 usual hamburgers and hot dogs, then in 1951 added a twist: Mexican
 food, namely 19-cent tacos. He also worked on other fastfood
 ventures, among them the first Der Weinerschnitzel hot dog stand, with 
his employee John Galardi. Galardi later turned the concept into his
 own 400-unit chain. Ed Hackbarth, another employee, left to open a competing drive-in that became the Del Taco chain.

With $4,000 raised from family and friends—no bank would give him a
loan—Bell's first Taco Bell started serving in Downey, Calif., in
1962. He quickly opened another eight restaurants, fulfilling a 
craving for Mexican food (or at least a fastfood version of it) people didn't know they had. When the first
 Taco Bell in Florida opened November 29, 1967, for example, residents were so clueless
 about the cuisine that Bell had to run advertisements defining menu
 tems and showing how to pronounce them. ("Yo quiero Taco Bell" and
 that now-famous Chihuahua didn't arrive until 1997.) In 2008, the
 singer Fergie gave the chain perhaps the ultimate shout-out, writing
 the lyrics "I'm no queen...I still go to Taco Bell, drive through" in
her hit song "Glamorous."

"I always smile when I hear people say that they never had a taco
 until Taco Bell came to town," Bell told Nation's Restaurant News in 2008, when the trade publication
 honored him with its Pioneer Award. "We changed the eating habits of 
the entire country."

Bell sold his first Taco Bell franchise in 1964 and sold the parent company to PepsiCo
 for $130 million in 1978. At the time of the acquisition, Taco Bell had 868 stores. The brand is now owned by
 Pepsi spinoff Yum Foods, the world's largest restaurant holding company.

"With Glen Bell's passing, we've lost one of our country's great
 entrepreneurs and innovators, but his legacy lives on in our people
 and our brand," Greg Creed, Taco Bell's president and chief concept 
officer, said in a statement on the company's web site.

Bell also leaves behind a personal business philosophy, which he enumerated in his 1999 biography Taco Titan as part of a list of 60 Recipes for Success that touched on the personal as well as the practical considerations of running a business. Among them:  No. 10. When you overextend yourself financially, it's twice as hard to get ahead, No. 21 Don't sell
 everything customers ask for, and No. 52: Your quality of life depends
 on your attitude.