5076 S. 9th StreetI feel like I need a name for this series…like I’m a YouTuber or something. A series of blog posts on I’m too lazy to cook but too cheap to get something good.
J was in Traverse City for a conference last week and I was home with the kids. That’s kind of opposite of how things usually go for us.
I work Monday nights and that wasn’t going to work with the kids. I wasn’t going to ask my in-laws to watch them until I got home at 11:30 so I just took the day off. I could use a recharge day anyway.
There was a lot of skating to be done that day. B had his first ice dance test in the morning. We did that then I took him to school for the rest of the day. I then had to pick L up from school and get her to Wings West before going back home to wait for B to get off the bus.
There was actually a gap in their skating times. L was done around 5:00 but B didn’t start until almost 7:00. I wasn’t going to make them sit at the rink for two hours so I left B at home playing video games and went to pick L up.
As I was leaving the house, B asked if I would pick up Taco Bell. I was kind of craving it too so I said yeah. I told L I was going to be a few minutes to pick her up because I was grabbing tacos and she texted back saying she was going to ask if we could do that too. So it worked out for everyone.
I hit up the Taco Bell on 9th Street just south of N Drive in Texas Township. We go to this one all the time but I don’t think I’ve ever been inside. We always do the drive thru. This one has the double drive thru that they put in a few years ago when they did a remodel to update the branding but the second drive thru lane is never open. Like I’ve been trying to do when I do this fast food blog posts, I parked the car and went inside to see how much Taco Bell has changed from my childhood.
That answer to that is, it’s changed a lot. If you didn’t grow up in the 80’s and 90’s, you’ve definitely seen pictures of the purple, pink, and teal color scheme that just screams 90’s. That’s long gone and replaced by a more subdued neutral dining room. Gone are the hard plastic chairs and tables replaced by just as hard metal and wood furniture.
There’s an order counter at the front that is much smaller than fast food order counters of the past. The menu board hangs above on TV monitors but I’ve always found Taco Bell’s menu so hard to read for some reason. It just seems like there’s a lot but also, not a lot to choose from.
I skipped the counter and just used the order kiosk. This is so much easier. I can take my time and look through it to find what I want. Not that I really had to do that as we all get the same thing like pretty much every time we go there.
B gets two cheese quesadillas and I got a Taco Party Pack from L and I. She asked for two tacos but I knew she’d eat more so I just got more. I also got two of the Baja Blast Dream Freeze’s and a large Pepsi. The cost came out to a little over $32.
The guy behind the counter got my Freezes and handed me a cup for the Pepsi while I waited. It only took a few minutes for two bags of food to be called out with my name on them.
Taco Bell’s tacos are….fine. I always get the crunchy which are more shell than filling and I load up on the hot sauce. I skip the packets because I usually have a bottle of the hot sauce in my fridge. It’s way easier than fighting with those little packets that contain barely any sauce in them. Growing up, I was always a much bigger fan of Taco John’s than Taco Bell but Taco John’s can’t seem to exist around around here. I got the party pack of tacos which is 12. There is so little filling in each taco it’s not unusual for me to want to finish off the entire pack on my own in one sitting. I resist the urge most of the time. It can’t be good for me to eat 12 tacos at once. I didn’t even have to worry about that this time. L had asked for two tacos but then ended up eating 6. I had the other six and no tacos went to waste.
B always orders the cheese quesadilla without the Creamy Jalapeno sauce. Without that, it’s just a simple flour tortilla with Taco Bell’s three cheese blend. Recently, he’s started ordering two of them and he eats both them of pretty much every time. I feel like a cheese quesadilla is something we could make at home but it’s never as good as Taco Bell’s.
I know…I say this all the time with fast food. It is what it is. Fast food is supposed to be convenient…not necessarily good. There’s nothing wrong with Taco Bell as far as fast food goes. It’s not as cheap as it used to be but it’s quick and tasty. We spend so much time at the rink, cooking dinner every night is hard. By the time we get home, everyone is exhausted and it’s almost bed time so the fast food places on 9th Street get a lot of our money.