 Taco Bueno
I'm always a little fascinated and amused by underdog fast-food joints, especially regional ones that aren't ever going to break out, even on the local level. Take Taco Bueno, for example. It sounds like a place where Bill & Ted would eat, or maybe Cheech & Chong, or Joe Dirt. It sounds like what a TV writer would call Taco Bell in a script where they couldn't actually use the name "Taco Bell."
BENSON (SCRUNCHING UP HER FACE): Tutuola, was that you? Good God! FIN: My bad, Olivia. Guess I shouldn't eat Taco Bueno right before a stakeout. Submitted for your Emmy® consideration.
In every respect, there's a bootleggy, off-brand quality here that makes you wonder how they've even gotten as big as they have. The menu is fine—in theory, at least, it's similar to Del Taco's slightly fresher take on fast-food Mexican—but the place itself just doesn't have its shit together. The staff is crazy slow, and they always have tons of customers getting twitchy and irritated waiting for their orders … and this is Tulsa, so twitchy and irritated here can lead to, like, murder.
I visited a few times after discovering a loophole in their "Buenohead" acquisition process, which offered a free "Big Freak'n Taco" with e-mail signup … somehow I was able to keep signing up and kept getting free tacos. But the place is so unpleasant, even the free tacos weren't really worth it after awhile. The tacos would always be drastically under-filled, ill-prepared, and served up with no real care for presentation … they certainly never looked remotely like they did on the menu board.
So why did I go back a couple more times? I guess I just like low-level fraud, same reason I steal Stevia packets from Starbucks.
Review by Wimpempy Tarlisle, June 2018 |
