Taco Bell has recently been hyping up the triumphant return of the Cheesy Gordita Crunch to its menu boards, but here’s the jig:
The Cheesy Gordita Crunch never really went anywhere.
It may have been off the menu proper, but since all the materials to make a Cheesy Gordita Crunch were present in extant menu items, the gordita-taco hybrid remained in the Taco Bell computer system and could be prepared to order.
The crunchy taco shell, ground beef, lettuce and cheese, of course, are all staples of the Taco Bell menu. The pillowy Gordita flatbread is used for the normal gorditas, the melted three-cheese mix is in the MexiMelt, and the zesty pepper jack sauce is familiar from the Baja line of products.
In fact, as long as an extinct Taco Bell menu item doesn’t include any specialty ingredients — a black taco shell or the spicy Caesar sauce from the long-defunct Chicken Caesar Grilled Stuft Burrito, for example — it’s a safe bet they’ll still make it for you at your local Taco Bell.
Just a secret of the pros.
Why Taco Bell decided to remove the Cheesy Gordita Crunch from the menu in the first place is beyond me. It was an important step between the Double Decker Taco and the Crunchwrap Supreme in the evolution of crunchy Taco Bell products that could also be eaten on the go, as necessitated by the near-impossibility of cleanly eating a standard crunchy taco while driving.
Its return to the menu board should be celebrated, of course, but it must not be the final step in Taco Bell’s pioneering work making new things out of a bunch of other things they already have laying around.
Here’s my idea. Listen up, Taco Bell:
Taco Bell’s fabulous website should create a flash-driven interface wherein users can combine existing Taco Bell ingredients into new and delicious Taco Bell menu items.
It will be like an electronic paper doll of pseudo-Mexican deliciousness.
For example: I might log on to TacoBell.com’s product generator and take the existing Volcano Taco and wrap it in the melted three-cheese blend and a piece of gordita flatbread.
Wham! It’s the Magma Gordita Crunch.
Or maybe I want a chicken Chalupa, only covered in Lava sauce and with some crispy red strips — the ones that debuted in that same Chicken Caesar Grilled Stuft Burrito.
Kapow! The Crispy Caliente Chicken Chalupa.
Lest you think this is just my way of getting more Lava Sauce on stuff, I believe the interface would best be used as part of an interactive contest to drive awareness of Taco Bell’s website.
It would be way, way too much to expect Taco Bell to just reproduce the whims of every capricious Taco Bell diner, not with all Taco Bell has already done for us.
But perhaps visitors to Taco Bell could vote on the most appetizing user-created suggested new menu item, and Taco Bell could reward that user with some sort of Taco Bell-themed prize, plus reward website visitors by creating and selling that popular suggested Taco Bell product.
I fail to see how this could possibly go wrong. All it would really take is Taco Bell tacitly admitting that it gets most of its new products by combining elements of its old ones. That’s just not really a big secret at this point.
Tedquarters 
Is the cheesy gordita crunch worth my taco dollars? I’ve had bad experiences with double-shelled tacos.
It’s very carby and pretty delicious, but it’s really only good for when you need something crunchy and can’t get taco beef or the patented orange Taco Bell juice on your shirt.
This idea sounds a lot like what Domino’s online ordering system is.
If Taco Bell were to ever go into online ordering (which I think would be a fantastic idea, personally), they should definitely implement an idea like this. Or even if you wanted to place your order online ahead of time before picking it up. Or, if they really wanted to commit to the idea, touchscreen menus (kind of like the way Wawa’s ordering works)! It would be like a Subway/Quiznos, where you have set menu items for those who want them, but you could also customize your order however you wanted.
I think this idea has potential.
Well we now have an imposter ‘Chris’ posting on the website. I’m going to use Chris M from now on I think.
If you can believe it, the Taco Bell in my town actually closed down last year. It was pretty sad driving by seeing the place boarded up, that was until a few month later when they turned in into a White Castle.
My actual name is Chris. Ironically, my last initial is also “M”.
I was not attempting to pose as anyone else named “Chris”, to my knowledge!
I know I was just joking about the whole imposter thing. I will continue to use Chris M for now, you can use just ‘Chris; if you like, until another Chris come along and screws it up.
Ha, I believe the other Chris has posted here before; his email address confirms that he’s also named Chris, and actually also Chris M.
All Chris Ms are welcome here, except Chris Martin of Coldplay. That guy should find better things to do.
I dunno, Ted. Maybe if Chris Martin spent more time posting comments here he wouldn’t have as much time to compose all those sappy MOR tunes of his.
Yeah but think of how intolerable this comments section would become.
Hmm…touche, Mr. Berg.
Two words:
Green Sauce.
what a coincidence. a friend actually gave me a head’s up a while back that you could still order the CGC. i never asked how he figured that out.
Jeez Ted, you eat all that and yet you still live! Also, what does it say that this has entry has garnered the most comments on your blog that I’ve seen. And half of it was a thread about Chris(es)!
I believe the record for comments is actually on a post about sandwiches better than cheesesteaks.
the glorious cheesy gordita crunch is always top priority whenever i enter the taco bell. one time i got kicked out of the taco bell for trying to steal a cheesy gordita crunch poster off their wall. sober.
My friends and I once stole a sweet life-size cardboard standup of Dave Thomas from a Wendy’s.
Food glorious food!
The cheesy gordita crunch has come and gone several times from the menu, but youve always been able to order it. And the volcano taco in a cheesy gordita crunch? Yeah, its the first thing i did when the volcano came out, you can literally order anything you want at taco bell and they’ll make it. What they’ll try to charge you is also better because you get to haggle over non-menu items.
You, sir, might be my hero. I imagine this depends on the Taco Bell, though. There’s no way anyone at the Taco Bell in Elmsford, NY — also known as The World’s Worst Taco Bell — would be able to pull off creating something that’s not on the menu. They rigidly adhere to what the machine tells them to do, and they often can’t even get that right.
Oh i hear you, but if you wait inside and explain through a complicated system of speech and pointing at pictures that are around the place they’ll eventually get it right. But if they get it wrong you pretty much have to deal w/ it because theyre not going to comp you for made up items. BTW awesome site, Im getting into it and will try to post more.
Ordering with a friend one nite in the early 2000s, we were shocked when we spent over $10 for 2 ppl. I never knew it could be so delicious to stray from crunchy and soft tacos.
Always order it regardless of its absence from their silly, sun-faded menus.
Also, be wary, the sauce can leak out of the CGC. It stained my pants in the limo on the way to your wedding reception. So worth it.
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