12 Discontinued Taco Bell Items We Aren't Getting Back
Taco Bell is a beloved fast-food franchise that has lasted for decades. The restaurant was founded in 1962 in California, offering its American-friendly take on Mexican-inspired dishes. It's grown into one of the most recognizable food brands in the world and has come out with a plethora of different menu items over the last several decades.
This restaurant has had many menu items come and go throughout the years. While Taco Bell has plenty of selections that stand the test of time, there are several discontinued items that didn't make it long term. Some people are big fans of some of the discontinued menu items, while other items were poorly conceived and probably should have never been released. Some folks get passionate about their favorite fast food, to the point where there are petitions to get some of these discontinued items back on the menu. In this guide, we'll discuss discontinued Taco Bell menu selections that are noteworthy for various reasons.
1. Meximelt
It's only right to start with a Taco Bell item that has been beloved by the public for years. Taco Bell filed its trademark in 1988, which means an entire generation grew up getting the Meximelt from Taco Bell drive-thru windows ... until it was discontinued in 2019. It's not hard to see why this meal was a favorite. It had a winning combination of the ingredients you'll find in a soft taco and a quesadilla. Legend has it that a Taco Bell intern misheard a customer's order, thinking that they ordered a quesadilla instead of a soft taco. Thus, the mishmash known as the Meximelt was born.
The main ingredients of the Meximelt include a flour tortilla, three different melted cheeses, pico de gallo, and ground beef. Customers were also able to customize it by switching out the type of meat, along with other special requests. Some Taco Bell locations let you get close to the Meximelt by ordering a specialized soft taco as part of the "secret menu." Like many fast-food mainstays that have gone by the wayside, fans have created a petition in hopes of convincing Taco Bell to bring back the Meximelt. It's never been confirmed why Taco Bell got rid of its Meximelt, but it's clear that it's missed dearly by its customers.
2. Caramel Apple Empanadas
If you've got a sweet tooth, Taco Bell has always had a rotating list of dessert items to choose between. The Cinnamon Twists may be the first Taco Bell dessert that comes to mind, but the fast-food giant once had a hotter, more substantial dessert offering in the form of its caramel apple empanada. This dessert offering consists of a crispy empanada shell filled with hot baked cinnamon apples and a creamy caramel sauce. It's one of the latest in a line of Taco Bell items that take Mexican-style mainstays and turn them into a dessert variation.
For instance, the restaurant has created cinnamon-flavored tortilla chips and chocolate tacos in the past. Like those other items, the Caramel Apple Empanada has also run its course, despite being a delicious accompaniment to spicy, savory combo meal items. The Caramel Apple Empanada gave customers the benefit of a hot dessert that's similar to the apple pies found at burger joints like McDonald's. Unfortunately, the empanada was cut from Taco Bell's menu in the spring of 2019.
3. Waffle Taco
Taco Bell has never shied away from ambitious products, and the Waffle Taco is proof. In an attempt to compete with other chains for the morning breakfast rush, Taco Bell came out with an expansive menu of Mexican-inspired breakfast foods. This included the Waffle Taco, which was a warm waffle filled with breakfast sausage or bacon, and scrambled eggs. Rather than hot sauce, customers could drizzle syrup all over their breakfast Waffle Taco to give it the full breakfast treatment.
Some folks found it quite delicious; this product tested well in certain markets, and the restaurant was excited to unveil it to the world. The Waffle Taco was released in 2014 nationwide and even extended worldwide breakfast hours in honor of the launch. Ultimately, customers had a difficult time gravitating toward Taco Bell for breakfast fare, so this was pulled from the menu about a year after its launch. Fans are calling for this breakfast item to come back as a full-time menu item with an online petition. It hasn't been back in nearly a decade, and Taco Bell later even apologized for its wacky breakfast menu items, so the Waffle Taco's chances of a return look slim.
4. Boss Wraps
What do you get when you take a favorite like the Crunchwrap Supreme and multiply the toppings? The result is Boss Wraps, an item that came and went after a few years. Taco Bell's Boss Wraps were first unveiled in 2015. It's a variation of the Crunchwrap Supreme — an item that has remained on the Taco Bell menu for years. The Crunchwrap Supreme features beef, nacho cheese, tomatoes, lettuce, and sour cream, on a crunchy tostada, wrapped in a soft flour tortilla. The Boss Wrap version features a double portion of meat, in addition to guacamole, pico de gallo, avocado ranch sauce, and three different cheeses.
It's only right that Taco Bell offered a variation of the Crunchwrap Supreme since it's Taco Bell's most successful menu item to date. Unfortunately, despite the portions and options, the Boss Wrap didn't stick around long. It's one of the many discontinued items that came and went, and most likely won't return anytime soon.
5. Enchirito
"Hook me up with my gooey Enchirito!" That's a line from Taco Bell's Enchirito commercial that might still ring in your head if you saw the ads in the early 2000s. Though Taco Bell had a strong advertising blitz for the Enchirito during this time, it was actually the second coming of this menu item. The Enchirito is a Taco Bell concoction that came out in the 1970s, before being discontinued in 1993. The restaurant brought it back in 1999 with a few changes.
Originally, the Enchirito was an item that featured ground beef, beans, olives, onions, and red sauce wrapped in a tortilla. With the relaunch, the Enchirito ditched the olives and replaced the yellow corn tortilla with a white wheat flour tortilla. The relaunched version also offered chicken and steak options. The name comes from the fact that this meal is a mix between a burrito and an enchilada. It was very cheesy and was a popular menu item both times it was available. Like many menu items, the Enchirito was discontinued in favor of another item — the Smothered Burrito. The Enchirito has been off of Taco Bell's official menu since 2013, though die-hard fans still try to order it as part of Taco Bell's secret menu.
6. Double Decker Taco
Burger places sell double cheeseburgers, so it makes too much sense for Taco Bell to have a Double Decker Taco. This menu item was a favorite in the '90s. It was heavily marketed at the time with commercials featuring NBA stars Shaquille O'Neal and Hakeem Olajuwon. The recipe for this menu item is simple — it's a hard-shell taco inside of a soft taco. This taco features beans, lettuce, tomatoes, cheese, and your choice of beef or chicken. It gave customers the best of both worlds so that they didn't have to choose between tacos or soft tacos. You get the softness of the tortilla wrap with the satisfying crunch of the yellow corn shell. What's more, you didn't need to worry about your crunchy taco falling apart because it was protected by the soft wrap.
While the Double Decker Taco enjoyed a magnificent run, all good things come to an end. This menu selection was discontinued in 2019. It was a beloved selection that many Taco Bell lovers still clamor for. People appreciate the flavorful simplicity of this option. Its popularity remains, as the Double Decker Taco is one of the favorite copycat recipes that Taco Bell fans put together to replicate this blast from the past.
7. Seafood Salad
It may be hard to imagine now, but Taco Bell once dabbled in seafood. This came in the form of the Seafood Salad, an item that was unveiled in the '80s before being quickly discontinued shortly after. Unfortunately, some fans call the Seafood Salad Taco Bell's worst menu item ever, so it's no surprise that it didn't last long. It featured a corn taco shell filled with shrimp, snow crab, white fish, lettuce, and a variety of vegetables. Taco Bell rolled out the Seafood Salad at the time to compete with McDonald's Filet-o-Fish.
In this regard, the marketing was not subtle; ads heralded it as a "refreshing change from anything on the bun." It never caught on, as the idea of eating seafood from Taco Bell was a bit too foreign for customers. To add insult to injury, consumption of the dish also led to numerous food poisoning reports. The Seafood Salad entered the pantheon of fast-food obscurity shortly after being discontinued, and this is where it remains decades later. Unlike other menu favorites, the Seafood Salad doesn't have a huge contingent of people trying to get it back. Many people love a good fish taco, but Taco Bell isn't the best place to get it.
8. The Bell Beefer
This is another Taco Bell menu item that was created to compete with the burger joints. The Bell Beefer was Taco Bell's take on a burger, which launched in the 1970s and lasted through the mid-'90s. It was the pet project of two Taco Bell executives who wanted to go head-to-head with other restaurants' burger options. What they came up with was a burger that featured beef, mild sauce, lettuce, and diced onions on a burger bun. This menu offering subtly mixed the flavor of beef tacos with the can't-miss appeal of a hamburger.
This menu item was one of many instances of Taco Bell's willingness to branch out to compete with other fast-food giants. It was one of Taco Bell's wildly popular items that fans were sad to see go by the wayside. Not only did fans create a petition to bring it back, but there are active social media groups of fans pushing for Taco Bell to bring this burger back. The Bell Beefer featured a short-lived limited-release return in the 2010s but shows no sign of return outside of the occasional internet rumor.
9. Cheesarito
Taco Bell's Cheesarito was a simple menu item that had a good run prior to being pulled from the menu. As the name suggests, this was a burrito filled with melted cheese, taco sauce, and tiny diced onions. The magic of this item was in its simplicity, which is why it was so popular for so many years. The Cheesarito was originally created to compete with menu items from Zantigo, another Mexican-style chain restaurant, but Taco Bell acquired Zantigo before the end of the '80s. Nevertheless, Taco Bell kept selling this menu item until it was discontinued.
Though the Cheesarito got discontinued, customers were still able to order it as part of the secret menu. Taco Bell stopped allowing customers to order it on the secret menu once the company discontinued the Mexican Pizza in 2020. The original Cheesarito relied on the Mexica Pizza sauce. Customers on foodie forums still share hacks for creating the closest thing they can to the Cheesarito. However, it's a menu selection that is sorely missed by the customers who loved it.
10. Black Jack Taco
The Black Jack Taco was a limited-time offering from Taco Bell that was rolled out in honor of the Halloween season. In order to match the fright of Halloween, the company rolled out an all-black taco shell that featured many of the same ingredients. This menu offering featured the black hard shell, beef, three cheeses, lettuce, tomatoes, and baja sauce. For contrast, and perhaps a bit more bite, the taco also featured a spicy pepper jack cheese sauce.
Taco Bell has long sold Pepsi products and was once owned by PepsiCo. The release of the Black Jack Taco was similar to Pepsi's Mountain Dew Pitch Black, which was also a Halloween limited release. While Mountain Dew Pitch Black became so popular that the company made it a permanent fixture, Taco Bell's Halloween-themed taco didn't fare nearly as well. Taco Bell gave them out for free from 6 p.m. to midnight on Halloween of 2009. It was a fun novelty item while it lasted, but there wasn't a strong enough demand to necessitate keeping it on the full-time menu. This taco is one of those items that was here and gone in the blink of an eye, making it well-known amongst fast-food historians, but not well-known to the general public. In addition to being one of Taco Bell's biggest flops, the Black Jack Taco also gained a reputation for turning customers' stool green. While those rumors mostly amount to an urban legend, the bad word of mouth alone is a good indicator that we probably won't see the Black Jack return anytime soon.
11. Grilled Steak Soft Taco
The soft taco has long been a go-to option for Taco Bell lovers. This taco featured grilled steak, lettuce, tomatoes, lime sauce, cheese, and a zesty avocado ranch sauce, wrapped in a soft flour tortilla. It was originally released to provide a beef alternative to the Ranchero Chicken soft taco. People enjoyed the Grilled Steak soft taco for years before it was eventually cut from the menu in July of 2020.
Removing this item was one of many cuts that the company made during the pandemic to streamline its menu options and ordering process. Though Taco Bell pulled the plug on this soft taco, you can still get your steak fix with a few other menu items. The restaurant is still selling the Double Steak Grilled Cheese Burrito and the Steak Quesadilla. The Grilled Steak soft taco was beloved by many, but they'll have to do without it since Taco Bell had a business decision to make.
12. Nacho Crunch Grilled Stuft Burrito
Throughout Taco Bell's history, the company has always had a willingness to mix and match a variety of different ingredients to see what customers gravitate toward. The Nacho Crunch Grilled Stuft Burrito is no different. This burrito was released in 2005 and featured the combination of double beef portions, red crunchy tortilla strips, tomatoes, sour cream, and nacho cheese, all wrapped tightly in a flour burrito. It also came with a white meat chicken option. While the company gets points for experimentation, customers clearly didn't take to this one, as it was discontinued by the time 2006 rolled around.
It was next in a long line of Grilled Stuft Burritos that started in 2001. The company later released a Grilled Cheese Burrito, which isn't quite the same, but may spark some nostalgia in fans who caught this one during the early mid-2000s.