In 1940, two brothers, Mac and Dick McDonald, opened a small eatery called McDonalds Bar-B-Que in San Bernardino. In addition to bar-b-que, they sold hamburgers. Eight years later, they were selling more hamburgers than plates of bar-b-que so they decided to revamp their restaurant and feature hamburgers as the main menu item. Since they would no longer be serving bar-b-que, they renamed their business to simply McDonalds. In 1954, milk shake mixer salesman Ray Croc came calling and was mightily impressed with the efficiency of the system the McDonalds brothers had designed. He bought the business a year later, began franchising it, and the McDonalds chain of fast food restaurants was born.
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Lil Dude in front of the Mitla Cafe at
602 N. Mt. Vernon, San Bernardino |
Glen Bell, Jr. was born in 1923 and honorably served as a Marine in World War II. After being discharged in 1946, he settled in San Bernardino and in 1948 opened a hot dog stand he named Bell's Drive-In. In 1950, he sold his hot dog stand and opened another stand selling hot dogs and hamburgers - Bell's Hot Dogs and Hamburgers. His new place of business was in the West Side barrio of San Bernardino directly across the street from The Mitla Cafe, a Mexican restaurant that had been in business since 1937. The main item the Mitla Cafe was and is still famous for are their hard-shell taco's. Bell fell in love with them. After eating the tacos, he would go back to his place where he tried to figure out how to make them the way they were made at the Mitla Cafe. Try as he might though, the right combination of herbs and spices eluded him. Finally, in desperation, he began asking the owners of Mitla to teach him their secret.
A short time later, Bell began selling tacos through a side window of his business. The tacos proved so popular that between 1954 and 1955, he opened 3 Taco Tias stands. He took on a business partner, sold the 3 Taco Tias stands and opened 4 El Tacos stands in Long Beach.
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Not in the safest part of town, chains and bars protect
the premises at night after closing |
By 1962, the chain of McDonalds was proving to be very popular and they were opening up all over the place. With McDonalds' continued growth right there at his back door, Bell decided they were too much competition and sold his hamburger place. He then sold his share of the 4 El Tacos to his partner and focused exclusively on selling tacos with his new place - Taco Bell. He franchised his business in 1964 and eventually sold 868 Taco Bells to PepsiCo in 1978 for $125 million. Today, the company is based in Irvine, California and has almost 7,000 locations which sell more than 2 billion tacos each year.
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