Pup 'N' Taco was a privately-owned chain of fast-food restaurants in Southern California

Southern California

Southern California is a megaregion, or megapolitan area, in the southern area of the U.S. state of California. Large urban areas include Greater Los Angeles and Greater San Diego. The urban area stretches along the coast from Ventura through the Southland and Inland Empire to San Diego...

, with its headquarters based in Long Beach, California

Long Beach, California

Long Beach is a city situated in Los Angeles County in Southern California, on the Pacific coast of the United States. The city is the 36th-largest city in the nation and the seventh-largest in California. As of 2010, its population was 462,257...

. The business was begun by Russell Wendell in 1956 as a drive-in restaurant that served tacos and hot dogs. At the time Russell owned a chain of successful doughnut

Doughnut

A doughnut or donut is a fried dough food and is popular in many countries and prepared in various forms as a sweet snack that can be homemade or purchased in bakeries, supermarkets, food stalls, and franchised specialty outlets...

 stores in Los Angeles

Los Angeles, California

Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...

 - Big DoNut

Randy's Donuts

Randy's Donuts is a landmark building in Inglewood, California, near Los Angeles International Airport, in a style that dates to a period in the early 20th Century that saw a proliferation of programmatic architecture throughout Southern California. This style had its heyday from the mid 1920s to...

 - which featured gigantic doughnuts atop a drive-in bakery. The first officially branded Pup 'N' Taco was opened in Pasadena, California

Pasadena, California

Pasadena is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Although famous for hosting the annual Rose Bowl football game and Tournament of Roses Parade, Pasadena is the home to many scientific and cultural institutions, including the California Institute of Technology , the Jet...

 in 1965.

The menu consisted of taco

Taco

A taco is a traditional Mexican dish composed of a corn or wheat tortilla folded or rolled around a filling. A taco can be made with a variety of fillings, including beef, chicken, seafood, vegetables and cheese, allowing for great versatility and variety...

s, tostada

Tostada

Tostada is a Spanish word which literally means "toasted". It is used in Latin America to name several different traditional local dishes which have in common the fact they are toasted or use a toasted ingredient as the main base of their preparation. There is a gender difference between "tostada"...

s, pastrami

Pastrami

Pastrami , is a popular delicatessen meat usually made from beef and, traditionally in Romania, also from pork and mutton. In Israel, "Pastrama" is the term used for sliced chicken and turkey. Like corned beef, pastrami was originally created as a way to preserve meat before modern refrigeration...

 sandwiches, burgers

Hamburger

A hamburger is a sandwich consisting of a cooked patty of ground meat usually placed inside a sliced bread roll...

, several varieties of hot dog

Hot dog

A hot dog is a sausage served in a sliced bun. It is very often garnished with mustard, ketchup, onions, mayonnaise, relish and/or sauerkraut.-History:...

 (the "pup" in Pup 'N' Taco) and french fries

French fries

French fries , chips, fries, or French-fried potatoes are strips of deep-fried potato. North Americans tend to refer to any pieces of deep-fried potatoes as fries or French fries, while in the United Kingdom, Australia, Ireland and New Zealand, long, thinly cut slices of deep-fried potatoes are...

. Beverages included R.C. Cola

R.C. Cola

RC Cola is a soft drink developed in 1905 by Claude A. Hatcher, a pharmacist in Columbus, Georgia, United States.- History :...

, root beer

Root beer

Root beer is a carbonated, sweetened beverage, originally made using the root of a sassafras plant as the primary flavor. Root beer, popularized in North America, comes in two forms: alcoholic and soft drink. The historical root beer was analogous to small beer in that the process provided a drink...

 and a variety of flavored slush

Slush

Slush can mean any of the following:* Slush — a slurry mixture of liquid and solid forms of water.* Slush — a pejorative and slang combination of the likewise derogatory terms slut and lush...

es.

Ninety-nine stores were bought by Taco Bell

Taco Bell

Taco Bell is an American chain of fast-food restaurants based in Irvine, California. A subsidiary of Yum! Brands, Inc., which serves American-adapted Mexican food. Taco Bell serves tacos, burritos, quesadillas, nachos, other specialty items, and a variety of "Value Menu" items...

 in 1984, effectively ending the history of the chain. However, three operations in Albuquerque, New Mexico

Albuquerque, New Mexico

Albuquerque is the largest city in the state of New Mexico, United States. It is the county seat of Bernalillo County and is situated in the central part of the state, straddling the Rio Grande. The city population was 545,852 as of the 2010 Census and ranks as the 32nd-largest city in the U.S. As...

, were not included in the deal and two existed until August of 2011 as Pop 'N' Taco, the same as in Los Angeles.

Trivia

In the 1985 comedy Fletch

Fletch (film)

Fletch is a 1985 comedy film about a wisecracking investigative newspaper reporter, Irwin M. Fletcher , who writes under the name of Jane Doe...

, starring Chevy Chase

Chevy Chase

Cornelius Crane "Chevy" Chase is an American comedian, writer, and television and film actor, born into a prominent entertainment industry family. Chase worked a plethora of odd jobs before moving into comedy acting with National Lampoon...

, Chase's character enters Alan Stanwyk's home and responds to the Hispanic

Hispanic

Hispanic is a term that originally denoted a relationship to Hispania, which is to say the Iberian Peninsula: Andorra, Gibraltar, Portugal and Spain. During the Modern Era, Hispanic sometimes takes on a more limited meaning, particularly in the United States, where the term means a person of ...

 maid

Maid

A maidservant or in current usage housemaid or maid is a female employed in domestic service.-Description:Once part of an elaborate hierarchy in great houses, today a single maid may be the only domestic worker that upper and even middle-income households can afford, as was historically the case...

's greeting of "¡Buenos dias!" (Good morning!) by replying, "¡Buenos Dias ... Pup 'n' Taco!" He greets several Hispanic people throughout the movie by saying the names of Hispanic places or using mock Spanish

Mock Spanish

Mock Spanish is a term sometimes used to describe a variety of usages common in some otherwise monolingual Anglo-American circles. The term has been popularized by anthropologist-linguist Jane H. Hill of the University of Arizona, most recognizably in relation to the catchphrase, "Hasta la vista,...

.

In the film The Runaways

The Runaways (film)

The Runaways is a 2010 American biographical film about the 1970s all-girl rock band of the same name. The film was written and directed by Floria Sigismondi, who based the screenplay on the book Neon Angel: A Memoir of a Runaway by the band's original lead vocalist Cherie Currie...

, Cherie Currie

Cherie Currie

Cherie Currie is an American singer, actress and chainsaw artist. Currie was the lead vocalist of The Runaways, a hard rock band from Los Angeles in the mid-to-late 1970s.-Life and career:...

's sister Marie Currie worked at the "Pup n Fries" in the mid 1970's. Also Teena Marie worked there briefly in the 1970's.