Del Taco was much bigger than Taco Bell when I was growing up in Anniston and Oxford. Our favorite babysitter Danette took Jenny and me there a lot. Plus, Oxford High School let out at 3 and band practice started at 3:30, so lots of band kids jaywalked across Highway 78 to Del Taco in between. (Looks like there’s a Taco Bell there now, funnily.) I remember lots of good times there (though a sliced jalapeno eating contest right before band practice turned out to be ill-advised).
We moved to the Huntsville area in 1986, and sometime around then Del Taco began shrinking its national footprint, and I never saw nor heard of another one for decades.
Well, now there’s one just a few minutes from my office.
I will say up front I had no expectation it would be as good as I remember. There are two big reasons for that. One is that we tend to magnify our good memories; perhaps particularly our sensory ones. I know I had some tasty food from Del Taco in the ’80s, but I also know my memory has worked to make it otherworldly delicious in the intervening decades. The other is that fast food now simply isn’t what fast food once was. (See my post on my time as a Taco Bell employee.) Mostly, fast food was worse for you and less processed for shelf life 40 years ago.
So I went with two Del Tacos—the fancier of the two hard-shell tacos available—and a Del Beef burrito (which I’m nearly positive was called a Del Meat in my childhood). My counter to-go service was speedy. My lunch was freshly made, with reasonable curb appeal.
It was tasty. I ate it all. The hard shells provided sufficient structural rigidity until the tacos were gone. The burrito’s tortilla was just a little chewy, but not too bad. My total was just under $11, but I’m sure I hurt myself not going with a combo. (I didn’t want a drink.)
Sauce packets come in Mild, Del Scorcho, and Del Inferno. (I can’t remember which of the latter two is hotter.) They are reasonably palatable and about what you’d expect on heat for mass market sauces, which is to say there isn’t much.
There are more choices on the Del Taco menu now. There are more extensive Tex-Mex offerings—fish tacos, avocado, and such—as well as a full burgers-and-fries menu. I’ll branch out a bit on a future visit. For now I’ll say Del Taco beats Taco Bell head-to-head, but on my initial visit back I didn’t have anything I simply must have again. I’ll revise this post if I happen across something that flips that switch.