Why Taco Bell's Sloppy Joe-Inspired Bell Beefer Burger Fell Apart

Say what you will about Taco Bell, but it might know its audience better than any other major food chain. It's a company that makes no pretense about being anything other than a fun place to satisfy cravings at 3 a.m. (it had an entire ad campaign based around the idea of a meal eaten in the middle of the night). But this wasn't always the case; Taco Bell has made some curiously odd missteps in the past. Sometimes, this has to do with branding (the "yo quiero Taco Bell" campaign does not look good in hindsight), but sometimes, it has to do with the products themselves.

Enter the Bell Beefer. A mishmash of ground beef, onions, lettuce, and mild taco sauce on a hamburger bun (with the option to upgrade to a version involving tomatoes and sour cream), the Bell Beefer was a lot more like a sloppy joe than an actual hamburger. Though less remembered now, it was on the Taco Bell menu for decades before its fall from grace.

So what happened? Honestly, we're not entirely sure; there isn't much evidence as to why the Bell Beefer was eventually removed from Taco Bell menus. The strongest theory is the most obvious: It just wasn't selling well enough. Even that, though, is largely conjecture.

Incredibly, the Bell Beefer was an original Taco Bell menu item from the restaurant's founding in 1962 — though it didn't initially go by that name. It's important to remember that when Taco Bell was founded, the idea of a restaurant that only served tacos seemed patently absurd to many American customers. Tacos were regionally popular in Texas and Southern California, but many customers seemed skeptical about a fast food chain based around tacos. So founder Glen Bell, in an effort to broaden his restaurant's appeal, wanted a menu item that might look a bit more familiar to the average American consumer.

This is where the Bell Beefer comes in. First called the chili burger, the item that would become the Bell Beefer was one of the chain's five original menu offerings, alongside tacos, burritos, frijoles, and tostados. It remained on the menu until the 1990s — though it was redubbed the Bell Burger in the early 1970s before finally settling on the Bell Beefer in 1977. It briefly came back in the 2010s but hasn't been seen since. 

Again, low sales were likely the primary reason it vanished, but we don't know for sure. It could also have been that the Bell Beefer's original purpose — to provide an alternative menu item for the taco-skeptical — was no longer necessary. After all, everyone eats tacos now; they're woven into the fabric of American life. You don't need a taco hamburger to assuage the wary.

The Bell Beefer, though, certainly has plenty of ardent fans; there have been online petitions and Facebook groups to try to get Taco Bell to bring it back. There have also reportedly been San Francisco-based sit-ins to get the Bell Beefer back (given the decidedly unpleasant name "Stank Festivals"). Given that we don't know why it disappeared in the first place (Taco Bell has never released sales numbers that might answer this question), these efforts might ultimately bear fruit.

Taco Bell's more recent attempts to branch out with products that look like those of other fast food chains have met with more success than the Bell Beefer; its limited-time nacho fries were so popular they became a permanent menu item, and the Mexican pizza had enough of a cult following that when the company unexpectedly took it off the menu, fans all but rioted. This begs the question: Can the Bell Beefer survive and thrive if Taco Bell were to bring it back today? Only time will tell — although many diehard Taco Bell fans hope the answer is yes.