Frostop Revisited

Well, Zap Actionsdower looked for a spinning mug.

Midwestern Frostops wouldn’t give him anything to chug.

He asked the Google, "Where can I go?"

Google said, "There's only two places, ya know."

Zap said, "I've seen the one down in Huntington."

Well, Google's list was down to just one.

And Zap took off down Highway 61.

The Huntington, West Virginia area is a broken chain hot spot. In addition to a Frostop and a G.D. Ritzy’s that are a block apart, there’s a Rax half an hour northwest in Ironton, Ohio, and Suzi’s, a Burger Chef holdout, an hour in east in South Charleston, West Virginia. There’s also a Jolly Pirate Donuts in town, that I really should write about at some point, but I’m not here to talk about Jolly Pirate Donuts today.

Those that read my first Frostop post last year, will remember my regret in failing to create a perfectly looping .gif of the giant spinning root beer mug on the roof of the Huntington Frostop. That failure led to more disappointment at the next two Frostops I visited in Indiana and Illinois, as neither location had a spinning mug of its own. I kept meaning to get back to Huntington to have another Frostop experience, but higher priority trips, and life in general have prevented me from making it there since I wrote my previous Frostop post.

Fortunately my recent trip to New Orleans with Esmeralda Fitzmonster took me to the heart of Frostop country. While there were once 350 Frostop locations across the US, only 13 survive today, six of which are in Louisiana. Some Google Street View research led me to deduce that the Frostop locations in New Orleans and nearby Metairie did not have spinning mug signs, and Houston Historic Retail pointed out that the Baton Rouge Frostop’s mug was also stationary. That left the LaPlace, Louisiana Frostop, located 33 miles west of New Orleans on Highway 61 as the nearest spinning mug location.

Ever since writing about Frostop last summer and discovering the blog run by the owners of the LaPlace location, as well as their Facebook page which regularly features pictures and videos of their spinning mug, I’ve wanted to visit the LaPlace Frostop. The owners of that location show an appreciation for the brand’s history in their social media presence that was missing from the Frostop locations I visited in Indiana and Illinois. After a few days of exploring several gulf coast broken chain locations and generally being insufferable tourists, Esmeralda and I found our way up US 61 to LaPlace.

The building stands, as it has for the past 61 years, on the east side of town, next to the highway. It initially looked very much like its counterpart in Huntington, West Virginia with a sloping roof extending past the walls of the building to form a canopy, but a some point, an interior dining room was added. The mug was moved from the roof to a pole next to the building at some point as well. Esmeralda and I walked past the original exterior order windows and inside to order and eat in the building, something that it was not possible to do at any of the three other Frostops I had been to previously.

We studied the printed menu on the order counter and placed our orders, ensuring we both ordered large root beers which came with reusable souvenir cups. I was so happy to be there, I didn’t even mind when the cashier inadvertently short changed me by two dollars. We took a seat at the back corner of the dining room, and chatted while I observed our surroundings and took some discreet pictures. Based on the decor in the dining room, it appears that the dining room has not had any significant updates since in the early ‘90s, though RoadArch.com indicates the addition itself was built in the 1960s.

The view from our table

Most of the artwork on the wall had this general aesthetic.

It was the mid afternoon lull on a weekday, and our order came up quickly. My chili dogs tasted as if they were right off the grill. The chili sauce appeared to have been made from scratch, and while they weren't my favorite chili dogs, (Mr. Quick's dogs have that honor.) they were well above average. Esmeralda ordered a Lot-O-Burger, an item that dates back to a time when Frostop was supported by a corporate entity. Thanks to 30 or so years of the remaining Frostop locations operating independently, there is wild variation in menus between locations, and this was my first time encountering a Lot-O-Burger. It turned out to be a fairly standard quarter pound burger with all the normal toppings. Esmeralda let me have a bite, and while it wasn't terribly distinctive, it was at least a decent burger, a notch or two above its analogs from one of the big fast food chains. While there wasn't anything terribly exciting about her burger, a taste of the hand-breaded onion rings Esmeralda had ordered made me regret ordering fries. It's tough to find good made from scratch onion rings, and that's exactly what these were. I'm happy to report the root beer appeared to be the authentic Frostop formula, further reinforcing my theory that the Chrisman, Illinois Frostop that serves Barq's Root Beer is the outlier.

My meal, decent dogs, forgettable fries, collectible cup

Esmeralda's meal, and the onion rings I regret not ordering for myself. 

On my way out, I ordered a specialty that seemed to be unique to the LaPlace Frostop, the wedding Cake Shake. I expected a flavor akin to the various birthday cake flavored products that have become trendy in the past few years that taste of cake batter, buttercream, and food dye, but the Wedding Cake Shake was distinctive in flavor and appearance. Topped with whipped cream and silver sprinkles, the shake nailed the appearance of a wedding cake as much as a milkshake can, and its flavor with strong hints of amaretto and vanilla is evocative of a cake one might find at an upscale bakery that churns out cakes to support the Wedding Industrial Complex.

Wedding cake shake (top view)

The best part of the entire experience at the LaPlace Frostop, however, was finally getting enough video footage of the spinning mug sign to make a .gif that loops decently. It's far from perfect, but it's as good as I can hope for it to be for a .gif that was captured and edited on my phone. Of course, I noticed too late that the mug had neon lettering on it, unlike it's Huntington counterpart. I guess that means I'll have to come back at night in order to make a .gif of it spinning with the neon lit up in order to feel truly fulfilled as a human being.

I wouldn't mind taking a trip back to the LaPlace Frostop, though. The midwestern Frostops I visited have let their brand identities languish over the years. Thanks to their isolation from other Frostop locations, I suspect that the majority of their customers don't realize that their local Frostop is part of a broken chain. That's not the case with the Frostop in LaPlace, however. Thanks to their online presence, loving restoration and maintenance of their Frostop mug, and the presence of original items on the menu, the LaPlace Frostop stands as a monument to the Frostop brand. With its indoor dining room and thoughtful menu additions it also shines as an example of what the Frostop chain might look like today had it not been abandoned by its corporate parent. As Frostops go, it's a good one. May its mug spin forever.

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Tray Chic

If there’s a genre of restaurant that’s barely hanging on, it’s got to be the cafeteria. Seemingly for my entire life, cafeteria dining outside of the context of a public school or hospital basement has been popular with an overwhelmingly elderly crowd, and as the clientele has slowly started dying off, the cafeteria chains have faded away with them, slowly going the way of the automat as their patrons gradually shuffle off this mortal coil.

I grew up in an extended family where people over 60 outnumbered those under 18 more than two to one, and boy, did my living ancestors ever love going to cafeterias. I remember one particular extended family outing where I was dragged to the Lexington, Kentucky location of the now defunct Blue Boar Cafeteria chain in the also now defunct Turfland Mall. I was no older than seven, and had a particularly bad case of the flu, but that wasn’t enough for my geriatric relatives to resist the siren song of standing in line for food served from steam trays. On the way into the building, I ended up barfing what I recall to have been a superhuman amount onto the floor of the main mall entryway in not so silent protest of the excursion, but rather than taking their obviously sick child home, my parents opted instead to continue into the cafeteria, likely cajoled onwards by whatever overbearing elders were with us, locked into the tractor beam Blue Boar seemingly employed to attract old people and their long-suffering families. In retrospect, I’m not even sure that my parents got a chance let a mall employee know about my puke puddle.

Not long after that, perhaps partially due to my vomit incident, the Blue Boar closed, and the Morrison’s Cafeteria a few miles away at the distinctively green-roofed Lexington Green* shopping center became my family’s cafeteria of choice. By that time, I was nine or ten, a couple years closer to my own (presumably) eventual old age, and could at least appreciate the unique experience of standing in line in the long wood-paneled corridor, picking up a tray, selecting a salad and dessert, and requesting hot sides and entrees from ladle wielding employees who were posted along the serving line.

An actual photo of J.A. Morrison, probably

Morrison’s Cafeteria’s first location was opened by J.A. Morrison in Mobile Alabama in 1920. The single location became popular and grew into a regional chain thanks to its wide variety of made from scratch foods. The chain peaked with 151 locations in 13 mostly southeastern U.S. states. The company went through several side ventures over the years, the most successful of which was the Ruby Tuesday restaurant chain, which they acquired in 1982. Ruby Tuesday would soon become the company’s main focus in the face of declining popularity of cafeterias, and the Morrison’s brand would be sold to the competing Piccadilly Cafeterias chain in 1998.

It was around that time that our local Morrison’s Cafeteria at Lexington Green became a Piccadilly, as nearly all surviving Morrison’s locations did. I recall having precisely one family meal after the Piccadilly conversion, during which, we noticed a significant decline in quality, and never returned. This must have happened a lot, because that Piccadilly location didn’t last more than a couple of years before closing completely.

These days, Piccadilly still exists, operating 42 locations, mostly in the Deep South, including 41 Piccadillys and a single Morrison’s located in Mobile, Alabama, the birthplace of the brand. Presumably, they operate the single Morrison's location to prevent the loss of the rights to use the Morrison’s name. When Esmeralda Fitzmonster, my romantic and domestic partner, suggested we vacation in New Orleans, I quickly agreed, mainly because it was a short two hour drive from New Orleans to Morrison’s in Mobile, a fact which I was reminded her of early and often in the weeks and months leading up to our trip.

The last Morrison's Cafeteria in the world

This is the closest thing you'll find to a menu at Morrison's...

We rolled into Mobile a few minutes before 11 AM, planning on an early lunch when we reached Morrison’s. I was concerned when we arrived that there would be little to remind me of my childhood Morrison’s experiences. The only two Morrison’s I recall visiting were the aforementioned location in Lexington Green, and another on the ground floor of a multistory building in Savannah, Georgia. The Mobile location, unlike these two, was a freestanding building, an outparcel of a nearby shopping mall. The architectural disparities continued inside as well. Instead of a long corridor leading to the serving line, the line itself was in the corridor, which was wide enough to accommodate a line of diners that makes a U turn, doubling onto itself, like the queue at a bank or airport security line. The ordering instructions on the wall were basic, telling patrons to pick an entree, two sides, and bread with the option to add a drink or dessert. I remember Morrison’s having a few different meal package options, including one known as “The Works” that I recall every member of my family ordering while I was forced to get a kids’ meal. I was beginning to become concerned that this lone Morrison’s was a Piccadilly in all but name. My fears escalated when I noted a distinct absence of the tall goblets of Jell-O cubes I remember always picking up from the dessert bar during my childhood meals at Morrison’s.

...but why print menus...

...when your customers...

...can see all the food...

...buddy? 

Still, Esmeralda and I worked our way down the line. I accumulated a plate of roast beef with some Waldorf salad and macaroni and cheese, while Esmeralda selected chicken tenders. We each chose a dessert and a drink, were handed a bill to pay as we exited, not unlike at Western Sizzlin. We then were free to select a table, which we did. Once we were seated and situated, our waitress was quick to introduce herself and ask if we needed any condiments. She was equally speedy in return with the requested horseradish and honey. My fears that this Morrison’s was merely a Piccadilly in drag were mostly assuaged when I had a closer look at, and taste of my macaroni and cheese, and found that the large elbow noodles were in a flavorful pale yellow cheese sauce and topped with a layer of melted, shredded cheddar. It was the same Morrison’s macaroni that was one of my go-to selections back in the Lexington Green days. The roast beef was equally tasty, as was the Waldorf and jalapeno cornbread I had selected. I was further comforted by a surprising amount of Morrison’s branded signage including an advertisement for online ordering at our table that sported the Morrison’s logo below the URL to the Piccadilly website. I was impressed that they had gone to the extra expense to have these printed for every table at their only Morrison’s location. 

Piccadilly marketing, complete with a Morrison's logo

Our meal selections

Macaroni of my childhood

Esmeralda is something of a picky eater, and chicken tenders or an analog thereof tend to be her default order whenever she visits a broken chain with me. I occasionally direct some good-natured teasing her way over her decision to eschew the illusive and wonderful Endless Salad Bar in favor of ordering chicken tenders on our visit to the Joliet, Illinois Rax, where they were merely frozen and breaded bits of fowl dumped from right from a Tyson bag into the fryer. Morrison’s chicken tenders were different, however. Each of the three tenders on her plate was seemingly made from scratch, and consisted of easily half a chicken breast each, clearly chicken tenders done right. 

Surprise sweet potato pecan pie 

The dessert course was similarly impressive, not so much because of the chocolate cake I had selected, which while more than adequate, paled in comparison to the slice of pie Esmeralda lucked into. What she thought to be pecan pie turned out to be a pecan-topped pie with a filling made of an orange-colored, nutmeg tinged filling of either pumpkin or sweet potato. My guess is the latter given the fact that it was springtime in the south. Either way, the few bites she shared with me made me wish I had a slice of my own. 

This branded rug was in the bathroom for some reason. 

Admittedly, this isn't the nicest catering van, but it's still decidedly less sketchy than the one I saw at Grandy's. 

Thanks to lovingly-prepared food and a courteous staff, including a manager who seemed genuinely pleasantly surprised to learn that we had driven there from New Orleans just to have lunch, we had a great meal at Morrison’s in Mobile, but I had a nagging feeling that we had really just eaten at a Piccadilly with a different sign. For better or worse, I had to find out how different a Piccadilly meal was from the one we had enjoyed at the last Morrison’s. Besides, since a Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2012 had forced Piccadilly to close many locations, they were probably in broken chain territory themselves. A few nights later, we made the short drive from our New Orleans Airbnb to the Piccadilly Cafeteria in Gretna, Louisiana, and I had never been so glad to have a mediocre meal. 

One of 41 surviving Piccadilly Cafeterias

The building housing the Gretna Piccadilly was similar in appearance and layout to that of the Mobile Morrison’s, and made me wonder if it was a former Morrison’s itself. There were plenty of little differences in the ordering process, though. At Piccadilly, cold side dishes were already in individual containers, and you were expected to serve yourself, unlike at Morrison’s where a staff member would portion out your cold side dish in a bowl and hand it to you. Additionally, while Morrison’s had a separate counter for takeout orders, all orders at Piccadilly were fulfilled in the main serving line, a fact which we became aware of when a woman in line in front of us was placing a to-go order for her entire extended family, and oversharing to the employees information about the eating habits, shoe sizes, and sex lives of each family member for whom she was ordering. The infuriating ordeal of being stuck in line behind this woman became all the more annoying when I noticed the third difference. At Piccadilly, you pay at the end of the serving line, meaning that this incredibly chatty woman had to pay her bill, make a big production of getting cash back on her credit card transaction so she could tip the cashier, whom, it turns out, wasn’t allowed to accept tips. Once we finally reached our table we found our food was lukewarm at best, thanks to the inferior ordering and payment process of Piccadilly compared to Morrison’s. To add insult to injury, our waitress was just as chatty as the woman in front of us in line, and was weirdly quick to volunteer extensive information about how and when she went about dying her hair when we asked for no more than a refill. 

Piccadilly macaroni is similar to Morrison's, but worse, just like Piccadilly in general.

I was simultaneously pleased and disappointed to find that the macaroni and cheese at Piccadilly was also different than its counterpart at Morrison’s. The Piccadilly version while similar in appearance and constituent ingredients, was topped with paprika, which gave the whole thing an unpleasant, almost woody taste, but its inferiority to its counterpart at Morrison's meant that Morrison's identity had been preserved in Mobile. In fact, the differences in the macaroni and cheese really sum up the difference between the one surviving Morrison’s and the locations of its sister brand, Piccadilly. While there are indisputable similarities between the two brands, Mephistopheles resides in the minutiae, and the little things Morrison's gets right, Piccadilly gets very wrong. Piccadilly is today, as it was in Lexington in the late ‘90s, noticeably worse than Morrisons. To their credit, however, the Piccadilly overlords have preserved a single Morrison’s location, allowing it to retain just enough of that Morrison’s magic that it shines brighter than it’s Piccadilly relatives. If every Piccadilly were run as well as the Morrison’s in Mobile, it could mark the beginning of a renaissance for the cafeteria.

Despite the fact that I’m still the better part of two decades too young to qualify for an AARP membership, I loved every minute of my meal at the last Morrison’s, and in an age where even the low-end fast food chains are emphasizing quality ingredients and made from scratch food, a brand like Morrison’s that has marketed itself that way from the beginning has the potential to attract a new generation of customers. Since they long occupied the space between fast food and full service restaurants, cafeterias, perhaps were the first fast casual restaurants, and in the near-absence of cafeteria chains today the cafeteria format could be marketed as a unique and memorable dining experience. It certainly always was for me growing up, even when I didn’t barf on the floor.

*Some unrelated fun facts about Lexington Green: 
-Lexington Green was home to a Cinemark theater that had the classic 1980s dayglow interior decor until well into this century. 
-In a surreal coincidence, a fatal shooting once occurred in Lexington Green’s parking lot while William Shatner happened to be shopping there.

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The Definitive Taco Tico

Last fall, I was enjoying a Sancho (a burrito shell full of taco fixins) and some Cinnamon Crustos (Fried tortillas coated in cinnamon sugar) at Lexington Kentucky’s sole remaining Taco Tico. It occurred to me that despite my lifelong love for the Taco Tico brand and the unique blend of fatty ground beef, fillers, and spices that is at the heart of most of their menu items, that my entire Taco Tico experience had been only at locations in Kentucky. Since Kentucky has only had two Taco Ticos for more than a decade, that worldview was a little too narrow for my taste.

This has been my go-to Taco Tico for more than 15 years

Dan Foley opened the first Taco Tico in Wichita, Kansas in 1962, and there were once 120 locations all over the Midwestern and Southeastern United States. In 2013, following decades of slow decline and shrinking location count, ten company-owned, Wichita area Taco Tico locations were forced to close by the Kansas department of revenue due to their failure to remit sales tax revenue back to the state, leaving only a handful of franchised locations, including the two in Kentucky, open for business. This marked the low point in Taco Tico history, and while things aren’t much better today, there is a faint glow of a bright future for Taco Tico.

Most of the Wichita area Ticos that were forced to close by the state have since re opened, and today, a total of 17 Taco Tico locations are open for business, nine in Kansas, plus two each in Oklahoma, Iowa, and Kentucky, one in Louisiana, and one in Texas. The restaurants are loosely associated today with each owner running a separate website, many of which show nonstandard menu items supplementing the classic tacos and burritos. 

 Like Seymour Skinner, I'm an odd fellow, but I steam a good ham

In the early days of this blog, I set out to replicate Taco Tico’s signature meat using a copycat recipe shared by YouTuber, AverageIowaGuy. I found his recipe to be bland, and lacking in the garlicky pungency of the Taco Tico meat I grew up eating in Kentucky. To paraphrase Seymour Skinner, I came close to madness trying to recreate it here in Michigan, but I just couldn’t get the spices right! That experience caused me to wonder how much regional variation there was in the flavor of Taco Tico meat, and if there was a recipe that could be considered the definitive Taco Tico. 

Mason City's Taco Tico is ridiculously photogenic at night.

My investigation began last December in Iowa, specifically in Mason City, home to one of the state’s two Taco Tico locations. It was the winter solstice, and night had fallen early as it often does on the shortest day of the year. I had been eating all day, storing up fat for winter like the large hairy woodland creature that I am, and Taco Tico was my last stop in a single-day broken chain marathon that included meals at Zantigo, Bonanza, and Happy Chef. 

But it's pretty standard inside. 

 Come to think of it, it's also weird that they had Pepsi. Every other Taco Tico I can remember has had Coke products. 

As one might imagine, I wasn’t terribly hungry, and tried, in vain, to work up an appetite by taking pictures of the exterior of the building, which featured the unique zigzag stripes that many Lexington-area Taco Ticos had during my childhood. (The surviving Lexington Taco Tico appears to have had few updates since the 1970s does not sport the ‘80s vintage zigzags, but functions as a time capsule from an earlier era.)  

Inside, the time warp feeling was milder. While the building still had its original built-in booths and tables, the menu board had been updated with a non-standard unit, and the freestanding tables and chairs were modern. I ordered up three tacos, two crispy, and one Choco after the cashier caught me taking a picture of the menu and asked if I had come to take pictures or order food. I paid, and she handed me a curious little ticket with the Taco Tico logo and my order number on it. I had never seen this before, and I still carry it in my wallet. (I’m a weirdo.) Oddly, it was the the only Taco Tico branded piece of ephemera I received on that visit.

My order came up a few minutes later, and I was greeted by a tray containing two tacos in plain white wrappers and a white Styrofoam drink cup. Despite their relative isolation from the Taco Tico homeland in Kansas, the Lexington and Louisville Taco Ticos have used custom printed cups and wrappers for years, with only a brief interruption around the time the state shut down the company owned Ticos in Wichita. 

Generic wrappers and an odd little order ticket.

A smear of meat up one side of the shell

The construction of the tacos themselves was curious. Firstly, the meat was smeared on one side of the shell rather than along the bottom, but I seemed to recall Louisville’s Taco Tico doing something similar. Secondly, a single tomato slice was in top rather than the diced tomatoes I’d eaten on Taco Tico tacos in Kentucky my whole life. The biggest shock came with my first bite though. The flavor of the meat bore little to no resemblance to what I had become accustomed to in Kentucky. Simultaneously, it tasted nearly identical to AverageIowaGuy’s copycat recipe. Kudos to him for perfectly replicating his local Taco Tico meat formulation, but it didn’t taste like the Taco Tico I know and love. 

Taco Tico’s Wikipedia page states there was a change in the meat recipe implemented following Dan Foley’s sale of the brand to a former KFC executive 1988. The change proved unpopular, and was quickly reverted to the original. Were the Iowa Taco Ticos still using the 1988 vintage recipe, the Taco Tico equivalent of New Coke, or was I raised on the supposedly inferior meat recipe in Kentucky? My parents would have started taking me to the Lexington area Taco Ticos right around 1988. Had my exposure at an early age caused me to develop Stockholm Syndrome for the Taco meat everyone else hated?

For better or worse, the next major event in Taco Tico’s history is set to happen in Lexington Kentucky. Longtime Cheddar’s franchisee, The Greer Companies, purchased the Lexington Taco Tico earlier this year along with a 10% stake in the entire Taco Tico brand. They’re planning widespread expansion starting with a second Lexington location across town in a building that was originally a G.D. Ritzy’s. I visited that very building last spring on my trip to every operating Ritzy’s. Taco Tico setting up shop a former G.D. Ritzy’s is a combination of my two favorite fast food brands that had only occurred in my wildest fantasies. The news that it’s set to become a reality had me acting more weirdly obsessive about both Taco Tico and G.D. Ritzy’s than usual for at least a solid week.  

Once a Ritzy's, later an Arby's, soon to be a Taco Tico

Still, the suspicion that the Kentucky Taco Ticos were using the wrong meat recipe was getting to me, even if it was the recipe I preferred. Relief for my foil hat-level paranoia regarding a taco meat recipe came when Esmeralda Fitzmonster suggested we take a trip to New Orleans in the spring, and since  Louisiana’s only surviving Taco Tico is just around the corner from the New Orleans airport, I emphatically agreed with her suggestion. Naturally, Taco Tico was our first stop after we landed and picked up our rental car. For the first time ever, I had flown to a broken chain. 

If you ever visit New Orleans for the food, you can't pass up the Taco Tico by the airport. 

The Kenner, Louisiana Taco Tico is housed in a purpose built Adobe with a near identical layout to its counterpart in Lexington. The main differences being that the Kenner location wears ‘80s vintage zigzag stripes similar to those at the Mason City, Iowa Taco Tico, and that one of the front corners of the dining room is walled off and houses a few slot machines, no doubt the owner taking advantage of local gambling laws to create a second non-taco related revenue stream. The walls inside were decorated with murals that evoke a 1980s southwestern aesthetic. While no such murals are present at either surviving Kentucky Taco Tico, I have vague memories of them being present at other Lexington locations that closed in the mid ‘90s. 

I want this exact mural in my kitchen at home. 

This location is a near perfect 1980s time capsule

I placed my normal order, a #2 combo, two tacos and a Sancho, with cautious optimism, comforted by a decades old menu board identical to the one at the Taco Tico in Lexington. Esmeralda ordered the same. I was delighted to see branded cups and wrappers on the tray when our order was ready, and the first bite of my Sancho took me right back to every Taco Tico meal of my childhood. 

I've never been here before, yet it feels like home. 

Behold the bounty of Taco Tico

Louisiana’s only Taco Tico was using the meat recipe I grew up with. The very same flavor that fueled my lifelong obsession with Taco Tico was here, 750 miles from Lexington. With the Louisville, Lexington, and Kenner Taco Ticos serving my preferred garlicky taco meat, Mason City, Iowa was the outlier, the weirdo selling the bland garlic-less tacos in plain white wrappers.

The tiny Taco Tico casino is behind the partition.

Sadly, though, the nagging taco paranoia continues. I’ve only eaten at four of the 17 total operating Taco Ticos, and in only three of the six states that house them. I’ve never eaten at a Taco Tico in Wichita, home of Taco Tico Enterprises and birthplace of the brand. That’s where the truly definitive Taco Tico flavor is, tax evasion and all. I’d like to make it to every Taco Tico eventually, but regardless of what and where the definitive Taco Tico is and was, it’s likely to be the Lexington flavor in the future. 

Greer Companies’ president, Lee Greer is a longtime Taco Tico fan, and his long term plan includes acquiring a majority stake in the Taco Tico brand and moving headquarters to Lexingon, Kentucky, much to my delight. Lexington, one of the few cities that has been home to a continuously-operating Taco Tico for the past four decades may soon be home to the Taco Tico brand itself. For me that makes Lexington Taco Tico the definitive Taco Tico, regardless of how the Sanchos taste in Mason City or Wichita, but if you're a midwesterner and/or vampire who grew up without garlic in your Taco Tico tacos, YouTube user, AverageIowaGuy has you covered. He even figured out the bean recipe. 

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