[chrisinoc]

The first Taco Bell was located nearby my parents and relatives' old grocery market. Glenn Bell offered my father and uncles a chance to franchise or invest. They thought Taco Bell would never be profitable and turn it down.

[dead]

Save the cat food!

[dfwgator]

Didn't you watch Demolition Man? Taco Bell won the Franchise Wars.

[SpaceBar]

Yum foods or frito lay or whoever owns it has enough money to have it packed in styrofoam peanuts and sent anywhere in the world with champagne and a movie.

[VerySadAmerican]

I saw a documentary where a motorcycle cop drove up to the location and Bell was working on the building. The cop asked Bell what he was doing. He told him and the cop said he’d like to invest some of his retirement money. He did and got rich.

Bell himself sold out years ago. It’s said that he like creating the business but he hated running it.

[smoothsailing]

[Autonomous User]

[Aliska]

Richard and Karen Carpenter lived in Downey when they got their start in the music business. Maybe they ate there. Richard is still alive and living in Thousand Oaks so maybe he is on the conservation committee.

One problem is I think I read somewhere that the first home the Carpenter family purchased and lived in after they moved from New Haven, CT, was demolished for some urban development project, maybe a freeway.

Time marches on. America has demolished a lot of the old heritage in the name of progress. Fortunately some still remains. Europe has managed to modernize and preserve much of the Old World charm.

[jcon40]

Ahhhh....back when a bean burrito was 10 cents .....red or green

[Vendome]

Went there with a girlfriend when I was a wee lad.

I worked at the one in Santa Cruz and thought it would be fun to visit the original.

[Revel]

Is this where they did their recent Gay commercial.

[Vince Ferrer]

I don't know if people would be nostalgic about the first time they had diarrhea enough to keep this building

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

Reminds me of when we were offered to invest in two new businesses. MINIE PEARL’S FRIED CHICKEN and WALMART.

One went belly up, the other...Well I know lots of people who wish they could kick their butts for not coming up with a few bucks.

[An American in Turkiye]

Taco Bell is dead to me since they discontinued the Chili Cheese Burrito. Any FReepers with me on this?

[muir_redwoods]

Good. Now get the rest of them.

[Moonmad27]

Charles Phoenix charlesphoenix.com led a wonderful retro tour of Downey in late 2009. We visited a barn where the Downey Rose Bowl float was being prepared, a deserted hospital and the eerily empty doctors’ houses around it, the early McDonalds, a grocery store in pristine 1960’s state often used for TV, commercials and films, a huge movie studio complex where Apollo space capsules were built, and of course the Carpenters house. It was a fun day! I don’t recall the Taco Bell.

[ExCTCitizen]

Taco Bell? Live Mas? No thanks... Moe’s is better.

[trisham]

1962. Wow.

[Liberty Valance]

bttt