Place: Del Taco
Lunch: 2 Barstow Tacos (no tomato), grilled chicken burrito (no lettuce, no tomato), Coke
I had a dream last year where my badly decomposing body was found in a seedy Barstow motel room. I was watching the scene from above, as if I were hovering like a ghost. There were police detectives. The floor was covered in discarded taco wrappers. Wrappers from Barstow Tacos.
Ed Hackbarh managed the Barstow outpost of Glen Bell's Taco Tia chain. When Bell left Taco Tia to start another chain with new partners (no, not Taco Bell, that came later), Hackbarth bought the little walk-up stand and re-branded it under his own Del Taco banner. It was actually the second Del Taco. Hackbarth opened the first in Yermo.
The Barstow store sill exists at 401 N 1st Ave (the Yermo building does too, though it's no longer a Del Taco), and although Hackbarth sold the chain years ago, he and his family are still franchisees. They own and operate Barstow's three Del Tacos. They tacked on a dining room to the walk-up stand and in 2015 extended the dining room to the front of the lot and added indoor restrooms to the building for the first time in its history. The exterior has a whole new facade and looks totally modern, but the original bones are still in there.
I like to road trip down here when in Vegas. Why, when there's already Del Taco stores all over the Vegas area? Because the Barstow stores are not only historic, they make better tacos.
The big key is the taco meat, which is apparently Glen Bell's original recipe. It's much milder. And there's far more of it in the shell. More like a Taco Time taco than a Del Taco. The national chain recently rolled out a new signature taco called "The Del Taco", allegedly inspired by these. They don't work. Partly because too much lettuce, partly because of Del Taco's far more heavily seasoned meat.
Anyway, I just love the things. And I'm not alone. A lot of people make a Barstow Taco pit stop when traveling between Los Angeles and Vegas. The store by the interstate is the chain's busiest location.
Been a good trip. I've gotten most of what I wanted to get done accomplished.
I could easily become a desert rat.
