"Next Time Get It Delivered"

The Taco Bell Cantina and the Bleak Future of Fast Food

I am an avowed fan of Taco Bell, though not in the modern sense in which “fan” is usually meant. I don’t have any specific affection for the brand, don’t follow new menu developments, and would never dream of defending the brand online. I do not own any Taco Bell centric apparel and would not purchase it if I saw it. If I received it as a gift, a t-shirt or something, I’d probably enjoy the novelty of it for a few weeks and then it’d sink to the bottom of my t-shirt drawer. When I say I am a “fan” of Taco Bell, I mean that every couple weeks I get a craving for garbage. I want cheap meat, well seasoned, processed cheese from a bag, and some sort of umami emulsion called like “Zinger Sauce” that’s approximately 60% mayonnaise. Taco Bell has my consumer loyalty just due to being the cheapest way to fulfill that craving. In an era where fast food charges you more for less, Taco Bell has remained remarkably consistent. You can walk in with a ten dollar bill and walk out with more food than you should eat in one sitting. The gold standard of fast food economy.

So when it was announced that a Taco Bell Cantina was opening in my neighborhood, I was excited in a modest, low-frequency kind of way. I’d drive past it and think “oh yeah, that should be open soon.” Recently I visited for the first time, intending to hang out, assess the vibe, and make a bit of a pig of myself. I walked out depressed, but not in the way you usually are after eating twenty dollars worth of Taco Bell.

Baja Blasted

For those not in the know, a Taco Bell Cantina is a Taco Bell with a liquor license. They serve beer and alcoholic slushies in addition to the usual complement of soft drinks. There’s an obvious trashiness to the concept, but I found something unpretentious and appealing there. Adults like a cheap meal too. For children of the American suburbs such as myself, getting a soda and loitering at a fast food restaurant to take advantage of the free refills is a nostalgic experience, conjuring up memories of our adolescence. I’m just a teenage dirtbag baby, play McDonald’s Monopoly (maybe) with me. 

That’s more or less what I was expecting at the Cantina. Counter service, booth seating, cheap beer. Bring people in for ironic reasons (“lmao wouldn’t it be hilarious if we got drunk at Taco Bell you guys?”) and let them get comfortable. Hang out. Soon you’re ordering a second beer and some nacho fries. Splitting a Mexican pizza for old times’ sake. Beer number three. Feeling good. Best to leave it there, before things get sloppy, but we’ll be back! 

Fast food has lost cultural ground to so-called “fast casual” restaurants. The Chipotle’s and Cava’s and Panera Bread’s of the world can project respectability, wholesomeness, and even health in a way traditional drive-thru fast food can’t in a world so inundated with the perils of a Big Mac diet. It’s perhaps impolite to say, but this is a class thing to some extent. Modern parents, worried about raising ugly Americans who’ll search for a Burger King among the bistros of Paris, can pretend that they’re not basically feeding their kids the same grains, processed cheese, and cheap red meat in the sleek corporate confines of a fast casual franchise. McDonalds, KFC, and yes, Taco Bell, are seen as low rent and low class. Chipotle and its fast casual ilk project middle class aspiration. The capitalist striver set runs on bowl meals.

The Cantina, then, can be a marriage of the two concepts. The unpretentiousness and modest price points of fast food, with the homey, hangout atmosphere of fast casual.That was my hope.

I’m Afraid of Part-Timers

When you walk into my local Taco Bell Cantina, you immediately understand that this is not a place you are meant to spend any extended amount of time. It is a sterile white and gray rectangle with approximately ten tables all told, none of which have comfortable seating.  There is a service counter festooned with beer taps to your left. There is an industry-standard soda fountain to the right, with the usual assortment of lids and sauce packets. Then, closer to the door, are the touch screens. Ah yes, the touch screens. 

The layout of the store makes it apparent that you are not meant to form a line in front of the counter. You interface with the touch screens. You tap out your order and then either pay with a card or feed bills into the machine to cover the cost. You speak to no one and no one speaks to you. Now, lest you think I’m unreasonable, allow me to be blunt; I do not expect some mythical “human touch” at fucking Taco Bell. In general, I do not engage service workers in unnecessary conversation unless they engage me first. They don’t get paid for that and it’s unfair to make them add an emotional dimension to their minimum wage “unskilled” labor. I’ve stood on the other side of that counter and like to think I’ve retained some sense of how dehumanizing it can be. If you’re not working for tips, you have no incentive to do anything but complete the transaction accurately and efficiently and move onto the next one. When this happens, I try to be appreciative. If I’m asked to clarify some detail of my order, I tell them “thank you for asking.” At the conclusion of the interaction, I’ll say something along the lines of “appreciate you, boss” before stepping out of line to await my order. No jokes. No unsolicited comments on dyed hair, or piercings, or tattoos. Nice and civil.

I recognize as well that there’s an argument to be made that the touch screens just speed things up and eliminate awkward customer interactions (which I might even believe if the internet weren’t lousy with people cackling with glee over the imminent burger flipper purge after their food industry serfs dared to ask for a living wage). But is this really what we want? Really? 

I’ll confess that I was already bitter towards the touch screens. They started it. We had detente for awhile, the touch screens and I. We got along fine when I was getting my weekly fried appetizer sampler at Sheetz gas stations. But they overstepped their boundaries and lost my trust. Back when I went to college in Pittsburgh there was a not-great restaurant called Mad Mex near my student hovel. It had inexpensive wings that burned like hell on the way out. I moved out of the neighborhood and soon found a place with cheaper, better wings. Mad Mex is gone now. In its place is PileZ. 

Look at that and tell me it isn’t from some four outta ten dystopian movie. They serve “garbage plates.” I will not comment on this, out of respect for the rich cultural tapestry of upstate New Yorkers. Plus I’ve never had one. But just look at this shit. You punch in your order on a touch screen and get it through a hole in the wall. You never need to see a scary human being at all. You just push button and receive product. I’ll ask again. Is that what we want? Are we all so scared of our fellow men and women?

Twenty Dollars Worth of Taco Bell (No Beer)

My heart sank even further when I tabbed over to the alcohol menu (they don’t card, they just make you pinky swear that you’re 21. Maybe they would have carded me at the counter. I didn’t find out). Seven dollars for a Dos Equis. Get the fuck out of here. I can literally go around the corner to the franchised gastropub or down the hill to the microbrewery and get a better, stronger beer for that much. I can go down the street to my preferred watering hole and have a nice pint of cheap local lager from a bartender who knows my name for roughly three dollars and seventy five cents. For the amount that they’re charging me for a Dos Equis, I can go to that same watering hole and have a really solid whiskey sour. In what world would I pay seven dollars for a Dos Equis? I like Dos Equis well enough, but it makes no economic sense. A large company like Taco Bell should, theoretically, be able to undercut the market it is entering. Bring in consumers by being cheaper than your competition. I wasn’t expecting that rock bottom three seventy five pint, but maybe a fast fiver. That would represent a significant discount against everything on the block. But no, seven dollars. I’d rather be sober.

My plan had already deteriorated completely. I wasn’t going to drink and didn’t want to hang out (once again, this is not a good place to spend your time). I decided to get a large spread of my favorites, plus a few things I was curious about, eat, and get out. I spent twenty dollars. Steak quesadilla, medium soda, nacho fries, cinnabon delights, plus a “cantina shredded chicken” taco unique to these locations. It was all fine. It was what was expected. It was Taco Bell. 

Behind the Purple Window

A woman on her lunch break, working at the nearby mall, sat next to me. She complimented my Vans Slip Ons (green). I warned her of incoming rain later in the evening, due to arrive during her commute home. I never asked her name and she never asked mine. I watched college baseball on one of the two wall-mounted TV’s. The other, bewilderingly, was tuned to C-Span, showing the Libertarian National Convention. I ate and left. On the way out the door, I turned to the right and looked at the purple-framed walk-up sidewalk service window. Having been a DoorDash driver myself during COVID, I appreciated the consideration. The Taco Bell Cantina is on a busy street and in a neighborhood that lacks easy on street parking. The ability for cars and scooters to drive up to the curb, throw on the blinkers, and get their to-go order is good for the unseen delivery driver underclass that powers so many of our modern conveniences. 

It occurred to me that the Taco Bell Cantina, this one anyway, is built mostly for those drivers. It’s designed for delivery. Why a place that serves beer seemingly wouldn’t want people to hang out and order beer is beyond me. Maybe the franchisee got a discount if they went for the Cantina branding rather than a bog-standard Taco Bell. It’s besides the point. The fast food industry as a whole is traveling in this direction. I just struggle to understand why. Why are we willing to pay more, in fees to apps and tips to drivers, for the convenience of getting cold food delivered directly to our doorstep? Are we just lazy? Are we mortified to be seen at a trashy fast food restaurant rather than something cleaner, trendier, more upscale, and dubiously authentic? Do we just fear the sort of person who may loiter at a place like this? Do we fear the violence, incoherence, odor, color, or conduct of the unhoused person sleeping on a bench in a Popeyes? Or do we just fear how close we all are to ending up on that bench after a few bad days stretch into a few bad habits, bad decisions, bad breaks, and just plain bad luck. I don’t have answers. I don’t claim to. I didn’t go looking for them. I just wanted some Taco Bell.

There’s a sticker on that purple-framed window on the exterior of the Taco Bell Cantina. It reads: “Next time, get it delivered.” I guess I will. I guess we all will, sooner or later.