I’m not all that surprised that Shanghai had two Taco Bell franchises, and I’m not surprised they closed. However, the fact that it looked like this is surprising:
Not your Daddy’s Taco Bell is it? Actually, the franchises were known as Taco Bell Grande and were attempting to be an upgraded version of the American, um, classic. Both Grandes were closed by Yum! Brands Inc., the American parent company, which also owns A&W, KFC, Long John Silver’s, and Pizza Hut.
Interestingly, Yum! is filling the Shanghai locations (in addition to one in Shenzhen) with another venture called East Dawning, or Dong Fang Ji Bai, a fusion of the KFC business model with Chinese cuisine.
The franchise, which is named for the 11th century poet Su Shi, serves variations of Chinese cuisine — dumplings, noodles and pig’s ears.
More photos as part of a Wall Street Online slideshow here.
6 responses so far ↓
1 min // Jan 25, 2008 at 11:19 pm
I ate at one of these. It was kind of good. Not like taco bell at all. But I never understood why they called it taco bell and why they did it in China. If taco bell was a brand that had a good reputation for food or even a luxury appeal for Chinese people then I could see it. But it had neither. I guess that’s why it wasn’t popular and closed this week.
2 armz dealer // Jan 27, 2008 at 8:02 am
Reminds me of the first time I went to a Denny’s here in Japan. Ramon? Soba? Hey, where is the Grand Slam! :b
3 Simon Currie // Jan 27, 2008 at 11:14 pm
Taco Bell had a shop or two in Japan before too, they weren’t Grande (looks like a standard Tex-Mex fare that they went for), and they closed down some years ago. I like to get my cheap bad taco fix about once a year, so it would be nice to have one in Tokyo. There’s a Burger King here now (second try for the chain), but it’s tucked away somewhere in west Shinjuku so I haven’t been there yet.
4 Shinsano // Jan 27, 2008 at 11:40 pm
I’ve heard there was a taco bell in Seoul, but it closed years ago. As far as I’ve seen Koreans flat out dislike mexican food. Even Chinese food (of the non-Korean Chinese variety) is a tough sell.
5 bigdaub // Jan 28, 2008 at 2:09 am
kind of going off on a tangent here, this is also why i think baseball will not take off in china. what’s popular here will not necessarily be popular there. the chinese are unfamiliar with mexican food yum forced fed it to china. similar to baseball, it’s unfamiliar to most chinese and seems like mlb is trying to force feed it to china. not everything from the west will be welcomed by china.
6 Ryan // Aug 6, 2008 at 6:15 am
I ate at one! It was aweomse! I’m gonna miss the Sombrero wearing Chinese!
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