Ryansworld: Taco Bell

'''Special Note: Please note that this scenario is meant to be read as entertainment, not as an accurate prediction of the future. Also note that the viewpoints and opinions that may come across in this scenario are not necessarily the viewpoints and opinions of the author.'''

Taco Bell (known in South America as Tacuara Cardozo after 2058) will become one of the most premier five-star restaurants with the best reputation worldwide by the 2020s.

Summary


Even as Taco Bell tries harder to earn a profit, competition will remain fierce in the restaurant even with the failing North American automobile and banking industries. Order will not be restored to the North American economy until the summer of 2018. Many influences will change Taco Bell due to the threats of lawsuits from the family members of obese people who die from heart attacks and strokes. Thanks in part to people seeking healthier lifestyles, a decision by the top executives to evolve Mexican food beyond being "cheap junk for obese people" will be made. Measures will be put into action (by both the company and by official court orders) to reduce the carbohydrate count of all the items on the Taco Bell menu. By the year 2028, all items on the menu have been declared 100% diabetic friendly by the Canadamerican Diabetic Association.

Corporate-enforced mandatory fitness programs will eventually treat obesity as a mental illness rather than a sign of cultural prosperity. Taco Bell slowly transforms itself from a fast food restaurant for a predominantly high school crowd who frequently wears jeans to a hip, fancy restaurant that plays world beat music and tiny food that is a fusion of fancy cocktail morsels and their former menu of tacos and nachos. The dress code of Taco Bell will require three-piece suits for men and either a dress or a blouse/skirt combination for women. This will anger some like future Pennslyvania Governor Pierce Jones for being "too fancy for a fast food place and the name is name misleading." Genealogy reports would later find out that he is a distant relative of Mr. Joe Root, a well-known 19th century hermit who hails from Erie, Pennslyvania. This problem is solved in South America by 2058 when a group of nationalist businesswomen purchased the rights to the Taco Bell franchise and renamed all the restaurants in their country after a random soccer player who played for the infamous FC Guadalajarool United (also known as Panchitos Velàzquez).

Taco Bell as high culture


By the year 2060, Taco Bell (Tacuara Cardozo in Paraguay) becomes an institution of high culture. Customers who have been to a Taco Bell prior to the year 1997 will not be able to recognize anything. The lack of table service and utensils will have been replaced with five-fork arrangement, fancy napkins (called serviettes in New Zealand, Australia, Germany, and parts of North America), white linen tablecloths and expensive table service.

Because the urban crowd craves sophisticated restaurants (like the Pickel Barrel in Toronto or the Rainforest Cafe in Niagara Falls, Ontario), prices will be higher in New York City, Los Angeles, Toronto, Chicago, Minneapolis, and Seattle where the first "formal" Taco Bells will become runaway successes before this novel idea spreads throughout every Taco Bell in the world. Adding to the high culture appeal is that unlike McDonald's, Taco Bell employees need at least a bachelor's degree in culinary studies from a nationally recognized culinary school (McDonald's will only require the person to have a high school diploma and be at least 18 years of age). Due to the Ebola outbreak of 2015 along with subsequent outbreaks of swine flu and SARS, unprecendented innovations in labor-saving technology were introduced. The capitalist system would bring its inevitable end due to an "economic plague which started sometime in the year 2037." Many hamlets were abandoned as people chose to live more urban lives to required less fuel usage. Wages shot up and laborers could move to new localities in response to wage offers.

All uniforms for Taco Bell employees are sized by post-2040 clothing size standards. For those who are confused by the clothing standards of the future, here is a comparison between the "old" and "new" clothing sizes.

Competition's reactions
In the wake of Taco Bell's transformation from fast food restaurant to five-star gourment restaurant, McDonald's, Burger King, and Wendy's will take in the refugees who cannot handle the more fancier Taco Bell. As a result of this, executives in these restaurants keep their restaurants casual and laden with fast food until the 22nd century, when fishsicles (popsicles made of in vitro fish) becomes the latest craze in the food industry. Only Pizza Hut and Taco Bell franchises ever have the economic feasibility to become semi-formal five-fork dining places.