The legend of the Taco Bell Doritos taco shell finally became a reality this year, but if you think they're stopping with the "orange" flavor, think again. We saw hints that a Cool Ranch shell may be introduced, and it seems they're testing of the product may be ready to roll out into our stomachs just in time for bikini season. more ›

After a long testing period (which started last year) and a difficult February without snow or Dorito-flavored Taco Bell, yesterday at midnight stoners across the country (including New York!) finally flocked to strip malls and sampled from the shameful culinary merger of Dorito-flavored Taco Bell shells. Forcing us to get even more orange Dorito dust on our hands while eating $2 tacos will be enough to suggest that "the brand has its mojo back," at least according to Brian Niccol, the chief marketing and innovation officer for the Mexican chain. Not everyone sees the mojo rising, however. "Certainly people love Doritos, but putting them onto a shell doesn't necessarily make it a more authentic Mexican restaurant," says marketing strategist Laura Ries, who clearly has no clue about what attracts people to Taco Bell. more ›

Last year we learned that Taco Bell was testing out new Doritos flavored taco shells... but only in Ohio. Well, adventurous eaters on a budget, now you will be able to sink your teeth into the flavored crunch, too: the shell is going NATIONAL. According to reports coming directly from inside the Taco Bell headquarters, the Doritos Locos Taco will be available nationwide starting at 12:01 a.m. March 8th. Which is the perfect time considering a lot of bad decisions and alcohol will have to lead up to procuring one of these. To tide you over til March, here's a look at how your Taco Bell Cool Ranch Doritos Locos Taco sausage gets made (though these are only in the testing phase for now): more ›

To receive food stamps in New York State, one must be single and make under $14,088 a year, or a be in a family of four and make under $26,668. According to LoHud, the amount of money distributed through the EBT program is up 133% this year, compared with when the recession began in 2007. Three million people were on food stamps this July, a 70% increase from that year. You can't buy Double Downs with them quite yet, but our money is on Taco Bell anyway—those half-pound burritos temporarily take the pain away. more ›

Food stamps are all the rage these days—one in five New Yorkers are on 'em, using stamps to pay for everything from Wonder bread to organic Japanese eggplant. So it makes sense that more businesses would want a piece of the food stamp pie—businesses like fast food restaurants, to be exact. more ›

A man can only make so many Meximelts, and be burned from Cinnamon Twist grease so many times before he reaches his breaking point. Adam, a shift manager at a Taco Bell / KFC combo store outside Buffalo, was upset that he reportedly had to work 22 days in a row and was denied a day off on July 4. So he ended his career in a flash of brilliance, posting the above farewell message for his overlords and the public to see. more ›

Add a 10-year-old boy and a police officer to the long list of people who have beef with Taco Bell. Yesterday afternoon the boy and a cop became sick from a beverage that was dispensed from inside a Taco Bell in Merrick, Long Island. more ›

A few days ago, stoners, college kids, and other champions of fine cuisine across the nation breathed a collective sigh of relief when the false advertising lawsuit against Taco Bell, claiming that the restaurant's "taco meat filling" was only about 35% beef, was dropped. But that's not enough for the chain, whose mighty exterior belies a vulnerable inside: miffed, the Bell took out a full-page ad in USA Today with the question "Would it kill you to say you're sorry?" in giant purple letters, clearly directed at plaintiff Amanda Obney and her lawyers. more ›

A California woman who filed a class action lawsuit against Taco Bell accusing the wildly successful fast food chain of false advertising has withdrawn her lawsuit, which alleged that Taco Bell's "taco meat filling" is only about 35% beef, with binders, preservatives, additives and other agents making up the other 65%. And hence, calling it beef was balderdash. But Taco Bell pushed back hard against the lawsuit, spending between $3 million and $4 million on an ad campaign defending its beef. The company also threatened to countersue the plaintiff, who has now quietly dropped the lawsuit. more ›

Taco Bell may be thinking outside the bun, but they are thinking inside the minds of stoned college kids nationwide! The chain is currently testing out Doritos flavored taco shells, which... how has this not already happened? According to Slashfood, the Doritos Locos Tacos are only being served up in select test markets, including one town in Ohio (warning: link contains incredibly bright neon orange colors, you may want to put on your sunglasses). more ›

Taco Bell is threatening to sue anyone who makes "false statements" about the company's beef, including the people suing the company for allegedly misrepresenting what constitutes their "seasoned beef." In a spirited statement, Taco Bell President and Chief Concept Officer Greg Creed went on the warpath to defend his beef. But doth the Concept Officer protest too much? In standing up for his beef, he had no choice but to draw closer attention to the ingredients. Not that "Silicon Dioxide" or "Autolyzed Yeast Extract" is anything to be ashamed of! Own it, Mr. Concept Officer Man: more ›

[UPDATE BELOW] We're not really sure whether to categorize this post "Food" or "Miscellaneous," but perhaps that's for the courts to decide. A class action lawsuit [pdf] filed against Taco Bell last week accuses the chain of false advertising, because their "taco meat filling" is only about 35% beef, with binders, preservatives, additives and other agents making up the other 65%. The law firm filing the lawsuit tells the Daily News they don't want money, they just want Taco Bell to "stop saying that they are selling beef." more ›

The pseudo-scandal surrounding Skins, MTV's latest drama, continues. After reports surfaced that the network was retooling an upcoming episode for fear of it being perceived as child pornography the network got the expected results: The Parents Television Council is asking the Justice Department to investigate and the show has "lost" one of its original sponsors, Taco Bell. We say pseudo-scandal and put that last bit in quotes since we're increasingly inclined to agree with folks in the comments that this is more a well executed publicity grab than a real thing (remember there was a similar fuss, which also led to an advertiser leaving, when Jersey Shore hit the boardwalk way back in 2009). Which doesn't mean we think it isn't interesting/depressing. more ›

It was a year ago that 50 Cent filed a lawsuit against Taco Bell for using his name without permission. The company's president, Greg Creed, had asked the rapper in an open letter to press outlets "to change his name to 79 Cent, 89 Cent or 99 Cent for a day, and noted if he rapped his order at a drive-thru it would result in $10,000 being given to his favorite charity." Not informed of this, 50 Cent didn't hear about it until he was being called a sell-out. more ›

Over the summer rapper 50 Cent declared Taco Bell had wronged him by using his name without permission, and filed suit against the chain for 400,000,000 Cents. Now the Daily News is reporting that "in unusually nasty court filings, Taco Bell called Fitty a common street thug who's trying to look tough." Originally, Taco Bell President Greg Creed asked the rapper in an open letter/ad campaign to change his name to 79 Cent, 89 Cent or 99 Cent for a day, and noted if he rapped his order at a drive-thru it would result in $10,000 being given to his favorite charity. Creed says, "This lawsuit is another of [50 Cent's] attempts to burnish his gangsta rapper persona by distorting beyond all recognition a bona fide, good faith offer that Taco Bell made." Meanwhile, Taco Bell's lawyer (who better run for the border after all this name-calling) also claims that the rapper uses "his colorful past to cultivate a public image of belligerence and arrogance." 50's lawyer wonders "why they would decide to use his name in their ad campaign if they think he's such a bad character." more ›

Rapper 50 Cent has filed a federal lawsuit against Taco Bell, claiming the fast food chain used his name without permission in an ad campaign that asks him to change his name to 79 Cent, 89 Cent or 99 Cent. The ad is part of their "Why Pay More?" campaign, and a Taco Bell rep addressed the debacle, saying, "We made a good faith, charitable offer to 50 Cent to change his name to either 79, 89 or 99 Cent for one day by rapping his order at a Taco Bell, and we would have been very pleased to make the $10,000 donation to the charity of his choice." The problem is that 50 never agreed to it, and now Taco Bell may be left paying more than they bargained for as they face a $4 million lawsuit; the rapper wants payback for "diluting the value of his good name." more ›

For the second time in as many years, the famous Stage Deli in Manhattan was shuttered by the Dept. of Health after inspections found the restaurant infested with vermin. The Times Square institution was last closed in mid-2006 after it accrued too many points during a health inspection (points are for violations and a score above 28 is a failure.) As reported in The New York Times, the DOH inspected the Stage last Wednesday and assigned it a failing score. The deli was allowed to remain open while it corrected major violations, but a subsequent inspection 48 hours later still resulted in insufficient cleanliness. more ›

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• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a missing child on 94th St. and Broadway in Manhattan, a disabled train in the Amtrak tunnel under the Hudson River, and a shooting on Mott St. and Central Ave. in Queens.
• Miss Subway: beautiful at any age.
• For environmentalism, blue may be the new green. Coal miners and New Yorkers will probably stick with black.

From rats ruling a West Village KFC/Taco Bell to Governor Spitzer's downward spiral, from a shock jock's questionable words to an up-and-down year for the MTA (and its riders), we bring up the biggest stories of 2007. more ›

Cats in delis: they are ubiquitous, loved, objected to, necessary, and illegal. City inspectors are constantly on the prowl to ferret out deli felines, but deli owners say they are necessary fixtures to keep their businesses free of pests like mice, rats, and roaches. The New York Times has a story today on the ongoing battle between the city and the cats that are the sentinels of its delis--feline samurai who serve their masters in return for food, shelter, and the occasional scratch behind the ears.

To store owners, the services of cats are indispensable in a city where the rodent problem is serious enough to be documented in a still popular two-minute video clip on YouTube from late February (youtube.com/watch?v=su0U37w2tws) of rats running amok in a KFC/Taco Bell in Greenwich Village. Store-dwelling cats are so common that there is a Web site, workingclasscats.com, dedicated to telling their tales.

Bostonist knows how to party, and party it did this week! As the Red Sox played their winning Game 4 against the Colorado Rockies in the World Series, one fan composed tunes for each player on the team. Then, when the Red Sox won the World Series, fans celebrated all over town and snarfed the free tacos that Taco Bell gave the nation when Jacoby Ellsbury stole a base. Then they watched jigging Red Sox closer Jonathan Papelbon get his boogie on at the Red Sox Rally after the World Series. Manny Ramirez also invited them--and the entire city of Boston--to his house for drinks, but since the invitation came from the elusive Mr. Ramirez, Bostonist didn't believe him. And now we're moving on to the mother of all football games and the rise of Ghidorah on the basketball court. Beyond Red Sox news, Bostonist is honoring the passing of the late, great Robert Goulet by encouraging men to grow mustaches. more ›

Nowadays, when people see rodents at restaurants, they aren't necessarily calling 311 immediately - it seems the first call is to the local news station! A couple strolling by the Upper East Side Pinkberry at 82nd and 2nd Avenue called WABC 7 when they saw mice running around the store at 2:30AM yesterday. WABC 7 observed, "The mice seemed to prefer the counter area. It is just feet from the yogurt machine where the fresh-fruit toppings are kept." One Pinkberry customer, who had waited 20 minutes on line, told the Post, "As long as there's no rats in the ice cream, I'm OK." And, plus, mice are way cuter than rats. more ›

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a brush fire at 165th Ave. and Crossbay Blvd. in Queens, a stabbing on Bedford Ave. in Brooklyn, and hazardous material reported at 86th and 1st Ave. in Manhattan.
• A Credit Suisse First Boston banker faces up to 20 years in prison and $14 million in fines after he and a co-conspiritor were arrested for insider trading.
• Preservationist irony: Brooklyn's epic-sized grain terminal in Red Hook will remain a neighborhood fixture as it is repurposed for a new and useful life. It will soon hold ingredients for concrete to be poured over the rest of the present city.
• The McGreeveys continue their less-than-amicable divorce proceedings in the pages of the NY Post.
• A drunk off-duty firefighter nodded off in an East Side pizzeria, which was fine with the owner until it was time to close up. The police had to be called, and when they arrived the firefighter punched one of the cops in the face.
• The infamous West Village Taco Bell/KFC that drew attention as a haven for publicity-hungry rats will not reopen. We were amused to see that the owner of the restaurant is named Yum! Brands.
• 68% of New York City students graduate with a Regents diploma, versus an 87% statewide average outside of the city.
• Taking a page out of Lloyd Braun's political playbook, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn distributed nametags to the Council's other members.

In George Orwell's 1933 debut roman a clef novel "Down and Out in Paris and London", the author asserted that the more high-class an establishment in Paris, the more disgusting its kitchen could be counted on being. We certainly don't feel that holds true today, but the New York Times has a piece this morning about the closure of Brasserie la Côte Basque in the wake of the health scandal that stemmed from a rat rodeo in a West Village Taco Bell. The widely publicized downtown event resulted in the firing of at least one health dept. inspector and the closure of dozens of restaurants that were quickly re-evaluated.
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Remember when a filmmaker claimed that a group of lesbians attacked him outside the IFC Center last summer? And it was revealed that the women felt they were defending themselves, with one woman saying, "I admit I did cut him one time for my own safety"? Well, the case has made it to court. more ›

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The 22nd Annual April Fools' Day Parade is today. Did you go? We hope not, because this is a long running joke itself. During its 15th year the press was fooled and showed up to find no parade. From the Museum of Hoaxes: more ›

Untitled, by Raymond. more ›