Taco Bell Trivia
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45 free Taco Bell trivia questions with answers — food & drink quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
41 free Taco Bell trivia questions with answers. Taco Bell has been open since 1962, which means most of its best stories are older than the people ordering. This quiz covers the whole run: the hot dog stand that came first, the 400-square-foot original building, the Chihuahua that sold a billion dollars of tacos, and the April Fools' stunt that had thousands of Americans phoning the National Park Service in a panic. The 45 questions move from easy to genuinely difficult. Casual fans will get the Downey opening and the Doritos Locos Tacos; you need to be paying real attention to name the Chihuahua, the cafe where Glen Bell learned to make tacos, or the item that spent three years on the menu as the Pizzazz Pizza. Every answer here was checked against a primary reference — encyclopaedia entries, company history and contemporary reporting — before it went live, so nothing rests on a fan wiki or a listicle. Play it on your phone, use it as a round at a bar quiz, or settle an argument about what actually happened to the Mexican Pizza.
30 of 45 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which US state did the first Taco Bell open in 1962?
California
The first Taco Bell opened in 1962 in southern California; founder Glen Bell had run drive-in stands in San Bernardino since 1948.
Q 02Which Los Angeles County city hosted that original 1962 restaurant on Firestone Boulevard?
Downey
The first Taco Bell opened at 7112 Firestone Boulevard in Downey in 1962; the original building was moved to the chain's Irvine headquarters in 2015.
Q 03Before he ever sold a taco, Glen Bell ran a San Bernardino drive-in selling what?
Hot dogs
Glen Bell opened Bell's Drive-In in San Bernardino in 1948 selling hot dogs; his 19-cent tacos came a few years later.
Q 04How large was the original 1962 Taco Bell building?
400 square feet
The first Taco Bell was just 400 square feet: a walk-up stand with no indoor seating, where customers ordered at a window and ate outside.
Q 05Which drinks giant bought the chain in 1978?
PepsiCo
PepsiCo bought Taco Bell in 1978, a year after acquiring Pizza Hut; KFC followed in 1986, and the three chains were spun off together in 1997.
Q 06What did the buyer pay for the 868-restaurant chain in 1978?
$125 million in stock
PepsiCo paid $125 million in stock for Taco Bell's 868 restaurants in 1978, sixteen years after Glen Bell opened the first one.
Q 07When the soft-drinks parent spun off its restaurant division in 1997, what was the new company called?
Tricon Global Restaurants
PepsiCo spun off KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell in October 1997 as Tricon Global Restaurants, a name nodding to its three chains.
Q 08Which company has owned the brand since renaming itself in 2002?
Yum! Brands
Tricon Global Restaurants renamed itself Yum! Brands in 2002, the year it also bought Long John Silver's and A&W.
Q 09Which fried chicken chain is a sister brand under the same parent?
KFC
KFC has shared a parent with Taco Bell since PepsiCo bought the chicken chain in 1986; the two often operate combined KFC/Taco Bell restaurants.
Q 10In which year was the parent company's China business spun off as a separate listed company?
2016
The Chinese arm had grown big enough to run itself, with thousands of outlets. It kept the licence to operate the same brands there.
Q 11Which dog breed fronted Taco Bell's advertising from 1997 to 2000?
Chihuahua
The Taco Bell Chihuahua campaign ran from 1997 to 2000, built around the catchphrase '¡Yo quiero Taco Bell!'.
Q 12What was the name of the Chihuahua who starred in Taco Bell's 1997-2000 ads?
Gidget
Gidget, a female Chihuahua, played the male character in the ads and later appeared in Legally Blonde 2 (2003) as the mother of Bruiser.
Q 13Which actor voiced the talking Chihuahua in Taco Bell's 1997-2000 commercials?
Carlos Alazraqui
Carlos Alazraqui voiced the Taco Bell Chihuahua; he is also the voice of Rocko in Rocko's Modern Life and played Deputy James Garcia in Reno 911!
Q 21In which year was Taco Bell's Pizzazz Pizza renamed the Mexican Pizza?
1988
The Pizzazz Pizza, launched in 1985, became the Mexican Pizza in 1988; the original version was topped with black olives and green onions.
Q 22What reason did the company give for dropping the Mexican Pizza in November 2020?
Its packaging's environmental impact
Taco Bell blamed its packaging's environmental impact, saying the Mexican Pizza's paperboard boxes added more than seven million pounds of paperboard a year to its waste.
Q 23Which musician announced the Mexican Pizza's comeback during a 2022 Coachella set?
Doja Cat
Q 14In which year did the Crunchwrap Supreme become a permanent Taco Bell menu item?
2006
The Crunchwrap Supreme sold so well in its 2005 limited run that Taco Bell made it a permanent menu item in 2006.
Q 15The Doritos Locos Tacos launched in March 2012 through a partnership with which company?
Frito-Lay
Frito-Lay, maker of Doritos, co-developed the Doritos Locos Taco; Taco Bell sold more than 100 million of them in the ten weeks after the March 2012 launch.
Q 16In 2004, which soft drink brand handed the chain exclusive rights to a new tropical-lime flavour?
Mountain Dew
Mountain Dew Baja Blast, a tropical-lime flavour, was created in 2004 as a fountain drink exclusive to Taco Bell.
Q 17In which year did Baja Blast first reach supermarket shelves?
2014
Baja Blast first went on sale in shops in 2014, as a limited summer release a decade after its fountain-only debut at Taco Bell.
Q 18In 2001 Taco Bell promised free food for every American if a Pacific target was struck by debris from what?
The Mir space station
Taco Bell floated a 40-foot target in the South Pacific for the Mir space station's March 2001 re-entry and insured the free-taco payout; the debris missed.
Q 19After a 2011 lawsuit, Taco Bell advertised that what proportion of its seasoned beef was beef?
88%
Taco Bell answered the suit with full-page ads saying its seasoned beef was 88% beef and 12% seasonings and binders; the lawsuit was withdrawn in April 2011.
Q 20The Mexican Pizza returned to menus in which year, after a fan campaign?
2022
The Mexican Pizza came back in May 2022 after a fan petition; demand ran about seven times its pre-removal level and it was made permanent that September.
Doja Cat confirmed the Mexican Pizza's return from the Coachella stage in April 2022 and went on to star in Mexican Pizza: The Musical with Dolly Parton.
Q 24Roughly how many signatures did the change.org petition to bring back the Mexican Pizza collect?
170,000
Krish Jagirdar's change.org petition to save the Mexican Pizza gathered about 170,000 signatures, and Taco Bell credited it when the item returned in 2022.
Q 25Which chain replaced Taco Bell in the European release of Demolition Man?
Pizza Hut
Pizza Hut took Taco Bell's place in the European cut, with lines re-dubbed and logos swapped, because Taco Bell was little known in Europe in 1993.
Q 26In which year did Taco Bell's April Fools' ads claim it had bought the Liberty Bell?
1996
On April 1, 1996, full-page Taco Bell ads announced it had bought the Liberty Bell to help reduce the national debt; the hoax was revealed at noon.
Q 27How many major newspapers carried Taco Bell's full-page Taco Liberty Bell hoax ad?
Six
The Taco Liberty Bell ad ran in six major newspapers, including The New York Times, The Washington Post and USA Today, at a cost of about $300,000.
Q 28Roughly how much free publicity did Taco Bell's Taco Liberty Bell hoax reportedly generate?
$25 million
The $300,000 Taco Liberty Bell stunt was estimated to have generated about $25 million in free publicity, and sales rose by more than $1 million over April 1-2, 1996.
Q 29Which White House press secretary joked that the government was selling the Lincoln Memorial to Ford?
Mike McCurry
Mike McCurry, Bill Clinton's press secretary, answered the 1996 Taco Liberty Bell hoax by joking the Lincoln Memorial would become the Lincoln-Mercury Memorial.
Q 30The 2019 pop-up hotel called The Bell sold out its rooms in how long?
Two minutes
Reservations for The Bell, Taco Bell's pop-up hotel in Palm Springs, sold out in two minutes; it ran for just a few days in August 2019.