Taco Bell constantly rotates its menu, sometimes removing popular dishes for years at a time.- The chain's
Mexican pizza menu item is returning after two years of absence, and fans are thrilled.
Taco Bell just announced the Mexican pizza will return to menus on May 19, and it's an example of the chain's smart strategy around fan-favorite dishes.
Mexican pizza has long been a favorite among Taco Bell regulars, but it was one of more than a dozen items cut from the menu in 2020, alongside other beloved items like the seven-layer burrito and cheesy fiesta potatoes. Mexican pizza consists of a flour tortilla shell filled with refried beans, seasoned ground beef, and Mexican sauce, topped with another tortilla, Mexican sauce, cheese, and chopped tomatoes.
Removing and re-adding Mexican pizza was likely a way to see how much customers really cared about the dish, according to Kalinowski Equity Research CEO Mark Kalinowski. Maybe it wasn't selling quite as well as it had previously, so Taco Bell removed it to see if customers wanted it back, he told Insider. Kalinowski said he expects it to sell better this time around thanks to the buzz and promotion.
Taco Bell emphasized the lengths fans went to plead for the return of the Mexican pizza in Monday's announcement. Customers made petitions, memorials, and merch dedicated to the dish according to Taco Bell. A Change.org petition from "superfan" Krish Jagirdar asking Taco Bell to sell Mexican pizzas because of their importance to the South Asian community amassed over 170,000 signatures.
Removing beloved menu items might seem like a recipe for angry customers, but Taco Bell figured out how to do it successfully.
Taco Bell frequently changes its menu, though the rollout of new items slowed slightly during the pandemic. Despite outcries from fans in 2020, the leaner menu proved to be a smart decision as Taco Bell shifted to more drive-thru orders, and sales grew 5% in the quarter following the menu change. This was a standard menu shift, swapping out lower margin menu items for higher-margin ones, Kalinowski previously told Insider. The move was praised by analysts including Dennis Geiger of UBS.
During the periods when beloved dishes aren't available, fans rally around their return on social media. Especially dedicated fans create websites and forums dedicated to predicting when different items will return, and some media outlets join in on the guessing. Customers understand the cyclical nature of the menu, and make a sort of game out of these predictions. This essentially creates free publicity around product releases for Taco Bell.
Best of all for the chain, when dishes like Mexican pizza or potatoes return, they already have a built-in fanbase. The chain doesn't have to convince customers to come in and try something new. Instead, they've already been anticipating the return for months or even years, in this case.
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