Taco Bell (Sprinkle Road)
2229 S. Sprinkle RoadYou can hate me for this.
It’s been three weeks since I’ve written a blog post about a restaurant in Southwest Michigan…..and now that I do, it’s a chain.
Don’t worry. I’m kind of disappointed in myself too.
The truth of the matter is, I haven’t eaten out much lately. I’m still catching up on bills from our trip to Lake Placid and I’ve actually been pretty busy at work.
This past weekend we had our final regular season skating competition of the year. Fortunately, it’s in Kalamazoo at Wings Event Center. I only had to take one day off of work and we didn’t have to spend money on hotels and travel.
The competition started Thursday night but my kids didn’t skate until Friday morning. Still, I wanted to get to the rink after work to watch the Senior Rhythm dances.
I got off work around 5:30 then headed over to the arena. The skaters I really wanted to watch were the first three skaters so I really needed to get there by 6:03 when the event started.
I was hungry though and didn’t really want chicken strips from the concession stand at WEC. I figured the only way I could get something to eat and get to the rink on time was to stop at fast food.
The first thing I really hit on my way from downtown Kalamazoo to Wings Event Center is the Taco Bell on Sprinkle Road and Franklin Street in Comstock Township. The restaurant is on the east side of Sprinkle Road between a car wash and a gas station. The building has been a Taco Bell for quite a while. It underwent the transition to the boring, modern, dull grey and purple design about five years ago.
I’ve hit this drive through dozens of times over the years but I decided to actually go in to order this time. I was kind of in a hurry but I had a hunch that might make this trip move faster than the drive thru line at the time which was kind of long.
The restaurant has the same non-awesome 90’s designs that most Taco Bell’s have now. There’s is an order counter right as you walk in the door but nobody really mans those anymore.
If you turn around, there are a number of self service order kiosks on the wall. This is why I came in to the store. I knew exactly what I wanted and I thought it would be quicker to punch it in myself instead of waiting for the cars ahead of me to yell through a speaker.
I put in an order for a Taco 12-Pack of all crunchy tacos and a large Pepsi. The cost came out to about $23. It’s nuts…I can remember when this used to be a filling, fairly cheap meal and around $12-$15. Now it’s damn near $25.
An employee came to the front and grabbed a drink cup for me while I was waiting on the tacos. I filled that up with Pepsi then took a seat in the somewhat small dining room. Again, bland, boring, neutral. No color or excitement like the Taco Bells of the past had.
It took five minutes or so for my pack of tacos to be handed over. I opened up the box to find 12 crunchy tacos neatly aligned inside the box. I did not see any hot sauce in there though so I grabbed a few packets before I left.
A lot of times I grab this box and eat at home. I have bottles of Taco Bell’s hot sauce at home so it’s much easier to deal with but I wasn’t going home. I had to grab packets from the big trays full of packets next to the drink machine. I grabbed a few hot but also a few Fire as well.
We all know what Taco Bell tacos taste like. Crispy shell, seasoned meat, lettuce, and cheese. It was kind of a gamble to eat at Taco Bell right now as it’s suspected the shredded lettuce they use is responsible for the Cyclospora outbreak. I figured it has been enough weeks since that got really bad that they’ve made sure the lettuce was safe to eat. I added on at least one packet of hot sauce to each taco and ate a couple in the parking before heading down to Wings Event Center to watch some skating.
Is Taco Bell my favorite fast food? No. Is it my favorite fast food taco? Not even close. Is it good in a pinch though? Absolutely. I was really hungry and I knew I could grab a 12 pack of tacos that would feed me for the rest of the night. I ate probably six before I went in to the arena and at some point over the rest of the night, finished off the other six.
Taco Bell isn’t now and never has been a place that I immediately think of when I’m hungry but when I do make a stop at one, it always fills me up. It’s simple but tastes good enough that I keep going back.
