Taco Bell’s Bell Beefer – The Mexican-American Fusion Pioneer
The Bell Beefer was on Taco Bell’s menu from the 1970s to the 1990s. In a sea of soft tortillas, crunchy taco shells, and tostadas, it was the only menu item with a burger bun. This unusual hybrid was essentially a sloppy joe with a Mexican twist, featuring seasoned ground beef, lettuce, onions, and mild sauce all packed between two halves of a hamburger bun.
It was originally added to Taco Bell’s menu in the ’60s because its founder, Glen Bell, thought American consumers needed something more immediately recognizable to lure them into its restaurants. The Bell Beefer served as a gateway drug for customers who weren’t quite ready to embrace full Mexican cuisine but wanted something more exciting than a regular burger. While sales weren’t strong enough to keep it around indefinitely, the Beefer still has a pretty passionate fanbase. You can find several petitions floating around the internet calling for Taco Bell to reinstate The Bell Beefer back to the menu.
McDonald’s Arch Deluxe – The Quarter-Billion Dollar Failure
McDonald’s Deluxe range debuted in the 1990s as part of the chain’s attempt to cater to guests with a taste for “gourmet” food. While the line also encompassed chicken and fish offerings, its flagship burger was the Arch Deluxe. This used a beef patty with peppered bacon, lettuce, tomato, cheese, onions, ketchup, and McDonald’s secret Arch Sauce, and retailed for a significantly higher price than other burgers on the menu at $2.09 to $2.49.
An estimated $150-200 million evaporated on this failed McDonald’s burger for adults. The quarter-pound patty with Dijonnaise sauce and premium ingredients targeted sophisticated palates, but consumers rejected the price. It was one of McDonald’s largest marketing miscalculations ever. The irony? Many food critics actually thought it tasted pretty good. But some critics contend it was actually a good burger; it was just that the timing was off.
Pizza Hut’s Priazzo Italian Pie – The Deep-Dish Revolution
The Priazzo Italian Pie was a pizza product sold by Pizza Hut. It was first introduced in 1985, and was discontinued sometime between 1991 and 1993. This wasn’t just another pizza – it was essentially two pizzas stacked on top of each other. With two layers of dough, pepperoni, mushroom, onions, spinach, ham, bacon, tomatoes, and one full pound of cheese, Pizza Hut called it a pie; others called it a strange alchemy of pizza, quiche, and lasagna.
One major problem with the Priazzo that lead to its discontinuation in the 1990s is the amount of time taken to prepare one, averaging around 40 minutes. Internet hearsay and musings from former Pizza Hut employees claim that the Priazzo took longer to prepare and used more expensive equipment, including a specialized pan, to bake it properly, and customers weren’t keen on pizzas that took 40 minutes to bake. In the first year of its release, the Priazzo generated $350 Million in sales, contributing to earning increases that had hit two-year highs. Despite this initial success, fast food customers ultimately wanted their food fast, not fancy.
Burger King’s Cini-Minis – The Morning Sweet Tooth Solution
Mornings smelled of cinnamon in thousands of Burger Kings when the Cini-Minis were launched. These bite-sized treats – featuring warm dough spirals with sweet icing – became breakfast fixtures for a generation. Cini Minis were first introduced at Burger King in 1998 and became a fast food staple for many ’90s kids. These miniature cinnamon rolls were the perfect departure from fast food breakfast sandwich staples.
Branded by Burger King as “delicious bite-size cinnamon rolls from the heart of the bun,” these delightful cinnamon rolls were the perfect pick-me-up in the morning. They debuted in 1998, and fans have never forgotten about the delectable flavors of creamy icing and sweet cinnamon filling. A couple of years after the item was pulled, a Change.org petition started circulating on the internet, demanding the return of the minis. The fact that people are still petitioning for their return decades later speaks volumes about their impact.
Pizza Hut’s Triple Deckeroni Pizza – The Cheese Lover’s Dream
In 1996, Pizza Hut released the Triple Deckeroni Pizza. This unique pizza featured two thin crusts encasing a special blend of six different types of cheese and 90 pepperoni slices. The special pizza was released about one year after the highly popular Stuffed Crust Pizza and Pizza Hut expected it to share similar success.
Here’s a shock: The Triple Decker Pizza, which is exactly what it sounds like, ended up being a caloric nightmare. It was also a little too complex to prepare at the volume the chain needed. However, while you can still order a Stuffed Crust Pizza from Pizza Hut, the Triple Deckeroni Pizza is nowhere to be found on the menu. It will remain a mere memory for those who got a taste in the mid to late 90s. Sometimes the most excessive ideas are also the most memorable ones.
Wendy’s SuperBar – The All-You-Can-Eat Paradise
In 1979, when Wendy’s introduced its now-iconic restaurant salad bar, it was the first fast food restaurant in America to offer a consistent, fresh, self-serve option. But this was not the Wendy’s SuperBar of ’80s and ’90s fever dreams. That didn’t come along until 1987. First, Wendy’s added a baked potato to its menu in 1985, which only skyrocketed when the SuperBar arrived. Back then, you could order a baked potato, head to the SuperBar, and top it with whatever you liked. The SuperBar featured a $2.99 all-you-can-eat buffet with three themed stations: the Garden Spot (salads), Mexican Fiesta (tacos), and Pasta Pasta (Italian dishes).
It offered far more than the typical Wendy’s fare of burgers and fries, too. One commercial from the ’80s shows tacos and pasta alongside your typical cold bar offerings like salad and fruit. Plus, after 4 p.m., you could come in for an all-you-can-eat dinner at the Superbar for just $2.99 and the kids’ Superbar included a drink and a prize! At one point, it even included pizza. And let’s not forget the chocolate and vanilla pudding as a dessert offering. The SuperBar ran from 1987 until 1998 when Wendy’s decided to shift its focus on pre-packaged salads. Since leaving restaurants, it’s continued to hold a special place in customers’ hearts.
McDonald’s McDLT – The Hot and Cold Innovation
Back in the 1980s, the McD.L.T. sadly joined the ranks of short-lived menu items when it was launched to rival Burger King’s Whopper but failed to gain anywhere near as much traction. Topping a standard McDonald’s beef patty with lettuce, tomato, cheese, and mayonnaise, the burger itself wasn’t anything wild. What gave it its edge was its packaging. Unlike most McDonald’s burgers, it came in a dual-compartment styrofoam box that separated the meat from the veggies and sauce to “keep the hot side hot, and the cool side cool,” plus preventing the burger getting soggy in transit.
The McDLT was first introduced in 1984. It had its own custom-made container designed to separate the hot and cold parts of the burger. A good idea in theory, but there were environmental concerns about the polystyrene packaging. Plus, shouldn’t McDonalds be the ones to make their burgers? So, one section held the lettuce and tomato, and the other the patty and cheese. It got discontinued in 1991. The concept was brilliant, but environmental consciousness eventually won out over convenience.
Taco Bell’s BLT Soft Taco – The Breakfast Revolution
Some things just make sense, in a way that makes you wonder why no one ever thought to do it before. A beautiful-in-its-simplicity item, the BLT Soft Taco was exactly what it sounds like: bacon, lettuce, tomato, and a topping of shredded cheddar cheese and club sauce – also known as a BLT on a flour tortilla and BLTs in flour tortillas are delicious. Doubly so with Taco Bell sauce.
Don’t take our word for it, though, one commenter on YouTube raves: “I still remember the flavor of those BLT soft tacos & chicken club burritos over 20 years later. I have no idea why they were removed, best things on the Taco Bell menu like ever.” There was an added benefit to the BLT Soft Taco being on the menu, too: getting to add bacon to other Taco Bell items. The simplicity of this item was its greatest strength – sometimes the best innovations are the most obvious ones.
Wendy’s Coffee Toffee Twisted Frosty – The Caffeine-Sugar Combo
But do you remember when Wendy’s branched out from their basic chocolate and vanilla Frosty by adding other flavors? The year was 2009 and the Frosty was lagging behind the Dairy Queen Blizzard and the McDonald’s McFlurry when it came to frozen dessert recognition. So what better way to grab people’s attention than to add other flavors to the Frosty mix? There were several different flavors to choose from, but one truly stood out among the rest – the Coffee Toffee Twisted Frosty.
It’s obvious Wendy’s really thought this one would last judging by the relatively high production commercials that also capitalized on everyone’s love of boy bands. Just like your favorite boy bands, though, it just didn’t last and was retired two years later in the summer of 2011. Despite petitions to bring it back to menus, you’ll just have to add coffee and toffee to your Frosty yourself. The original Frosty flavor was a mixture of chocolate and vanilla to achieve a chocolatey-but-not-too-chocolatey treat. Frosted malts from the Thistledown racetrack in Cleveland were the unexpected inspiration behind Wendy’s iconic Frosty.
These discontinued fast food gems remind us that the 1990s were truly a special time for culinary experimentation. While some ideas were ahead of their time and others were simply too complex for the fast-paced world of quick service restaurants, they all left their mark on food history. If recent menu item revival events – like Taco Bell and Pizza Hut bringing back select items in the 2020s – are any indication, there’s money to be made and bellies to be filled with these nostalgic foods. Who knows? Maybe one day we’ll see these beloved items make their triumphant return to menus across America.
