Taco Bell Is Saving Their First Ever Restaurant From Demolition By Moving The Entire Building To Their Headquarters

Taco Bell is rescuing its first restaurant by moving it to another city. The taco chain said Wednesday that it is saving its first restaurant from demolition by lifting it from its 53-year-old foundation in Downey, California, near Los Angeles, and moving it 45 miles southeast to Taco Bell’s headquarters in Irvine. The restaurant, nicknamed Numero Uno, was opened in 1962 by founder Glen Bell as a walk-up taco stand with live music and fire pits. It closed in 1986, and other restaurants took over the space until it was emptied last year. Taco Bell is now owned by fast food operator Yum Brands Inc., which is based in Louisville, Kentucky. “This is arguably the most important restaurant in our company’s history,” Taco Bell CEO Brian Niccol said in a statement. The entire structure, which is about 400 square feet, will make the move Thursday night. It will stay in storage at Taco Bell’s headquarters until the company figures out what to do with it. Suggestions will be taken from customers.

What a great story. Taco Bell couldn’t just sit back and watch their first ever building get bulldozed to smithereens. Far too many people got high in that parking lot, and far too many people drove there while blacked out and lived to talk about it/wonder how they got tacos the night before for them to let that building crumble. Moving the entire building to their HQ in Irvine was the only move. Any other move would be like burning the first ever American Flag just because we’ve added a few more stars and stripes along the way. History is meant to be preserved. We need to be able to show our children where the first person subjected themselves to massive diarrhea just because the F grade meat tacos were so tasty.

PS: This got me thinking about what they would do to Barstool HQ if Portnoy ever decided Barstool, a multi-million dollar company, needed a real office instead of a converted dentist office with squirrels living in the walls. Undoubtably they’d set the entire building on fire. Interns that he doesn’t even know work there would be scampering out the back door.