Taco Bell Wants What’s in Your Wallet, So It’s Opening an Urban Taproom

Its U.S. Taco Co. hopes to get fast-food-avoiding consumers in the door.

Apr 25, 2014· 1 MIN READ

Culture and education editor Liz Dwyer has written about race, parenting, and social justice for several national publications. She was previously education editor at Good.

In an effort to get more customers in the door, fast-food chain Taco Bell last year ramped up its $1 Cravings menu, an assortment of low-budget, high-calorie, salt, and fat offerings. If you consider yourself at all health conscious, you probably didn’t roll through to try the Beefy Nacho Loaded Griller. But would you be down to try some Texas-smoked beef brisket slathered with salsa and melted Oaxacan cheese?

That’s the hope of Taco Bell parent company Yum! Brands Inc. This summer it’s opening the comparatively upscale U.S. Taco Co. and Urban Taproom in Huntington Beach, Calif.

Taco Bell CEO Greg Creed told Nation’s Restaurant News the company’s internal market research found that large numbers of Americans intentionally avoid fast-food restaurants. So Creed’s team came up with a menu that taps a demographic with more financial resources that’s “edgy in how they live their lives, but not necessarily in how they eat,” he said.

U.S. Taco is sure to get comparisons to Chipotle, but Creed says that although the menu will offer 10 premium tacos, overall, the restaurant has less Taco Bell flavor on the menu. If you want a burrito, you’ll definitely have to go somewhere else.

Instead, shakes, fries, and fusion-style American foods—hence the beef brisket dish—will be available. And taking a cue from “fast-casual” restaurants like Z-Pizza and Blaze Pizza, the eatery will offer craft beers and wine once liquor licenses are approved.

What’s not at all clear is how healthy the offerings at U.S. Taco will be. If a consumer is savvy enough to know that eating fast food isn’t a healthy choice, she’ll also know that a higher price point doesn’t equal reasonable amounts of calories, fat, or sodium. It would make sense for the restaurant to offer food that’s not a heart attack in a taco shell, but so far the company is mum on the menu’s nutritional fine points.

In the meantime, it sees the well-off and educated being into the U.S. Taco concept. “We’re going to open a restaurant and see what happens,” Creed said. “I’d love to see 1,000 or 1,500 of these, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

It would seem like a good idea to offer healthier food at Taco Bell to beat fast food’s bad rap, but there’s too much money to be made from serving Gordita Supremes to the masses. Taco Bell plans to double its sales to $14 billion and add 2,000 U.S. locations by 2022.