• Los Angeles Times, Tuesday, January 19, 2010 10:46 AM

Glen Bell, the founder of Taco Bell and spinner of business homilies such as "find the right product, then find a way to mass-produce it," died Sunday at his home in Rancho Santa Fe at 86, Myrna Oliver reports.

"We changed the eating habits of an entire nation," Bell says in his 1999 biography, Taco Titan: The Glen Bell Story. Indeed. He opened a couple of hamburger stands in San Bernadino, Calif., following World II, differentiating himself from his neighbors, Mac and Dick McDonald, by developing a 19-cent taco. A number of taco ventures -- Taco Tia, Del Taco, El Taco -- followed but Bell didn't strike gold until he partnered with his real estate agent and friend, Bob Trujillo, who came up with the trademark Taco Bell.

The first Taco Bell restaurant opened in March 1962 in Downey, Calif., and eight more followed within two years. PepsiCo purchased the chain in 1978 for $125 million. It's now part of Yum Brands and serves more than 36 million customers each week in more than 5,600 U.S. locations.

Read the whole story at Los Angeles Times »