Taco Bueno - tesg's guide to big chain road food consumption

CHAIN -- Taco Bueno
Owner -- Palladium Equity Partners
Primary Operating Region -- Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and new developing markets in the midwest and southeast.
Number of Locations -- 189 (April 2008)

My first Taco Bueno experience was memorable because the tacos had an aftertaste that reminded me of Pepperoni, and they had strawberry soda on tap. They also had a burrito on the menu called "BOB" ("Big Ol' Burrito").

The chain was owned by CKE (the Carl's Jr/Hardee's guys) at the time. The original store was opened by Bill Waugh, who also founded Casa Bonita, at South First and Portland in Abilene, TX in 1967 (no, it's not still open...it moved to a new location in 1999.) CKE picked Bueno and Bonita up in 1996 from a British company Waugh had sold it to in 1981, sold the Casa Bonita restaurants to Star Buffet, and did a massive (much needed) makeover to Taco Bueno, producing some really wild looking buildings, before selling it to an investment group, who fine-tuned and streamlined the chain before selling it to a different investment group, who is offering franchising for the first time. Through the last three owners, Bueno has actually held solid ground and has been well poised for growth.

"Bueno" means "Good" in Spanish according to Altavista's translation doo-hickey. So does that make the name officially "Taco Good"? No, because if you translate "Taco Bueno", it comes out "I Mark Good", which would make sense in describing an enthusiastic professional wrestling fan. But if you translate "Taco Bueno" from English to Spanish, you get "Bueno Del Taco". That translates back to "Good of I Mark". So as close as I could figure, professional wrestling fans marked out for good tacos. Then Phil Hamilton of Norman, OK (translation: "Go Sooners") extensively explained to me why "Taco Bueno" works out to "Good Taco". "The noun "taco" in Spanish means the same thing it does in English, ie, a taco. The verb tacar can be used as "to mark," and is conjugated in the first-person form as "taco," but is somewhat less common than the food, and is pronounced differently as well (ta-CO, rather than TA-co). And Spanish adjectives are placed after the noun they modify, so "Taco Bueno" becomes simply "good taco."

Yeah. What he said.

Taco Bueno focuses on freshness over cheap, not unlike Taco Time. Each store makes its own chips, guac, and salsa daily. The menu is your basic Mexican fast food fare...Tacos, Burritos, Quesadillas, Nachos, and a couple of specialty items like Muchacos, which are basically what Taco Bell calls "Gorditas", and the "Bueno Chilada", which is similar to the Taco Bell Enchrito, but different enough to be unique.

Taco Bueno offers several meals in complete platters, where certain menu items are complimented by rice, beans, chips, guac, and sour cream. The platters are awesome. I LOVE Taco Beuno's refried beans. They're my favorite anywhere. Actually, they also make my favorite chili sauce.

It would have been interesting to see what CKE could have done with this chain if they hadn't put themselves in such a hole by picking up Hardee's. The current owners are not only poised to grow...they're actually growing. It was only a few years ago that Taco Beuno was exclusive to Texas and Oklahoma. Taco Bueno has a development map on their website that shows growth plans into a significant part of the country, mostly the Midwest and Southwest. It hasn't always worked...the South Carolina franchisee opened and closed two locations in less than a year, and the first Omaha store has already come and gone.

Still, even if expansion doesn't work out, as long as Palladium keeps the course Jacobson set, Bueno should be fine.