Today I found out that the Syracuse Crunch of Syracuse, NY are pretty awesome. Not only is it fun to imagine they’re called the Crunch because they love Taco Bell, but on February 23rd, The Syracuse Crunch announced the details of “Taco Bell Night at the Crunch” to take place on February 28th. Now obviously that has already happened, but its pretty cool if you’re into hockey.

On February 28th, fans of the Syracuse Crunch hockey team could walk into any participating Taco Bell and get one coupon good for $12 off of a Syracuse Crunch hockey game. There wasn’t any other requirement than to go into Taco Bell, but while you were there picking up your free coupon, you might as well enjoy some Taco Bell.

Joshua Trout, 19, decided to speed through a Dodge County Taco Bell parking lot at 11:55 PM. When Joshua lost control of his vehicle, he rolled into the dining room of the Taco Bell hospitalizing him and his passenger April Callies.

Charges of “Causing bodily harm by reckless driving and unreasonable and imprudent speed” are pending against the driver of the truck. April and Joshua were both hospitalized but patient reports were unavailable.

Little information was given, but we can only assume he was very excited to eat his newly purchased Taco Bell. Anyone that excited about Taco Bell surely deserves to be commended, but a love for Taco Bell should never lead to bodily injury. In fact, for us here at Blog Outside The Bun, Taco Bell makes life better and brighter. As much as speeding home to eat Taco Bell sounds like an awesome idea, its better to just wait it out. Absence makes the heart grow fonder and that few minutes it takes to get home will make you enjoy your hard-earned Taco Bell that much more.

*Truck pictured not same truck featured in story.

According to Christian mythology, the Holy Grail was the dish, plate, or cup used by Jesus at the Last Supper, said to possess miraculous powers. Reports are sparse on what was actually eaten at the Last Supper, but we like to think that it was a Taco Bell Grilled Stuft Burrito. The Grilled Stuft Burrito is one of Taco Bell’s flagship items and being one of the largest and most flavorful, it is definitely last meal material.

After the Grilled Stuft Burrito’s debut, we here at BlogOutsideTheBun have been on a quest to find the perfect Grilled Stuft Burrito. When ordered from the menu, it consists of the meat of your choice, beans, seasoned rice, a three-cheese blend, Pepper Jack Sauce and Fiesta Salsa. That’s all fine and good, but the thing that separates this burrito from the others is the warmth and crunch that comes from pressing it the same way you would press a Quesadilla.

Typically, items on the Taco Bell menu can be made better. Sometimes it helps to add one thing or switch out another, but for a while we thought the Grilled Stuft Burrito was perfect. Fascinated, we put the item through rigorous trial and error. Adding Nacho Cheese changes the dynamic too much, while adding extra Baja Sauce was just a bit too overpowering.

The answer suddenly became clear when we decided to try something completely unprecedented. Taco Bell’s low-fat Sour Cream is cool and creamy and their Jalapeno Sauce has a quite a kick to it. Alone, these flavors were too much, but together they have the power to bring what was once dead back to life. This combination, coupled with its pre-existing taste, makes this Grilled Stuft Burrito worth dying for.

Recently, Taco Bell has been offering 49 cent hard or soft Tacos on certain days of the week, depending on where you live. Many of you have seen 49 cent Tacos on Mondays and Thursdays, Sundays only or some other day or days of the week. Taco Bells around the US are doing this, and many see it as signs of the current economic decline.

First the “Why Pay More?” value menu, and now this? Seems like our dear Taco Bell has fallen on hard times recently. Well, not to worry. A little digging reveals that this mind-blowing Taco deal has absolutely nothing to do with the economic decline. Looking back, Taco Bell has done this on multiple occasions. Its less of a sign that they need more money and more of a sign that they’re trying to get more people to come to Taco Bell, bringing us back to this.

So, loyal fans need not worry. McDonald’s does its 49 cent cheeseburgers, Denny’s does free breakfast and Taco Bell, well, Taco Bell gives you a reason to buy ninety-five tacos. Any excuse is good enough for us.

The choice of which Taco Bell to frequent is generally decided by where you are, but sometimes there are much deeper things to consider. There are over 5,800 Taco Bells in the United States. This basically boils down to there being enough in an area to choose from at least two but sometimes up to five different Taco Bells to eat at. From those two to five, there are many things to consider. Prices often fluctuate, the distance can sometimes be a nuisance and how old or newly renovated they are will all sway you one way or another.

The first thing to consider is whether or not the Taco Bell in question is privately owned. Privately owned franchises have the final say over prices and what promotions/items they do or do not participate in. Sometimes this can be a good thing, but in such “touch economic times” people are raising their prices more than ever. Corporately owned Taco Bells sometimes hike prices up slightly but private owners have less assets and raise them in an attempt to stay in business. This sometimes leads to items being up to a dollar more than corporate locations, making it the last choice on the list of which to visit.

Beyond prices, there are a few more subtle things that set many Taco Bells apart. Some have undergone recent renovations and others (often privately owned) are past due for such an update. Eating in an establishment with broken tiles, smelly bathrooms, sticky tables, squeaky chairs and that irremovable sheen of caked on dirt can be considerably unnerving, especially once your mind begins to wander to what the kitchen must look like.

After considering both ownership and prices, if a few of the Taco Bells in your area are even in those two respects (making you pretty lucky), you have to look at the crews that work there. If you frequent multiple Taco Bells, you begin to familiarize yourself with the ones make better quality items and at what time of the day they do it (whether day shift or night shift). Sometimes the staff can be very attentive, endearing and do their best to make every visit your best visit. Considering this, there are also those crews that don’t seem to do anything right, that do as little as possible as often as possible, and that really don’t care. This being last in the things you should look for does not, by any means, make it much less important than renovations or prices. These are the people that put together what you’re paying for, making them just as important as everything else.

Make sure to consider all of your options when choosing which Taco Bell will be your haven of cuisine on any given day. Such an important decision is the difference between getting everything you want, being comfortable and coming back again as compared to swearing off Taco Bell completely until you realize what an enormous mistake you’ve made.

Nobody ever seems to give Taco Bell enough credit. So many people consider Taco Bell to be the bottom of the barrel, worst of the worst or otherwise not worthy of their money, but still drop the dollars at plenty of other fast food places.

Taco Bell, McDonald’s, Arby’s, Burger King and any others you can think of generally pay the same rates, have similar marketing budgets, have the same quality standards and all follow the same FDA rules and regulations. Somehow, though, Taco Bell seems to sit at the bottom of the ladder of the average person’s fast food choice. Whether they don’t like the food (which 70% of the time means they’ve never tried it) or have never really eaten there, many are opposed to the idea of trying it rather than being open to giving it a try. If someone hasn’t ever tried McDonald’s, they’d be all gung-ho to dive right in and try a Big-Mac but the same could never be said for Taco Bell and a Chalupa.

This seems to stem from people either hearing that Taco Bell was somehow perpetually and inherently dirty or having heard some other horror story with little, if any, roots in reality. It sits on the proverbial bottom in people’s minds but there is absolutely nothing worse or dirtier about Taco Bell relative to it’s other fast food competitors. That is, on top of the fact that Taco Bell’s items generally have less calories and fat by weight and value and with the addition of their Fresco menu, have more versatile options to eat “healthy.”

Taco Bell has had its fair share of scares and negative marks on its record, but they were never really preventable by Taco Bell or YUM! Brands specifically. The 2006 E. coli breakout that affected 71 people in 5 states was not due to neglect on Taco Bell’s part. They immediately took action after identifying the problem. It turned out that the shredded lettuce they were using was infected with E. coli before it reached the Taco Bell, and there was no easy way to tell that it wasn’t up to code. Nobody at Taco Bell knowingly served up an E. coli taco, they simply used the same lettuce they always use.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the myth that the green onions were the cause of the outbreak holds no water. In fact, Taco Bell voluntarily removed green onions from all five-thousand and eight-hundred of it’s restaurants “after preliminary tests by the firm indicated the possible presence of E. coli” according to a report by the FDA. Taco Bell did their best to take care of the outbreak, but rumors spread and Taco Bell was quickly branded the bad guy. Taco Bell was not the only place to receive infected lettuce and “eight other [non-Taco Bell] restaurants on Long Island, in what [was] called a temporary precaution to sanitize and restock outlets, stopped service of lettuce.” Taco Bell was named the common factor in all of the outbreaks, but only because their reach extended beyond privately owned restaurants in the area.

If you look back to June 7, 2008, the FDA warned customers nationwide not to eat raw tomatoes for fear of infecting consumers with Salmonella. The only reason that particular “scare” didn’t target a specific company was because the FDA issued the warning before a considerable number of infections had occurred. This kept any one restaurant from suffering the burden of “the place that was infected with Salmonella.” The only difference in this case as compared to the E. coli outbreak was that the FDA caught it before it created any serious health issues.

All of these things, and probably miscellaneous other reasons, contribute to the social stigma surrounding eating at Taco Bell. This kind of thing causes it to stick around with enough loyal followers to keep it afloat, but Taco Bell should be a place that people are proud to eat. People should be able to tell others that they eat at Taco Bell without getting the disgusted looks and disgruntled sounds from their friends and loved ones. Taco Bell should be celebrated, even more so than the simpletons and copycats that are most other fast food restaurants serving meat between bread. So when someone you know says that they hate Taco Bell or that they think its gross, volunteer to be their tour guide. Bring them with you to a Taco Bell and show them the light. Show them what’s good, how to make it perfect and that there is nothing wrong with ordering more than just a hard taco. We need to show the world that Taco Bell is king, one patron at a time.

[The official E. coli FDA report]