Is Your Taco Bell Charging You Too Much? Fans Find Major Price Differences Between Locations

By and large, Taco Bell has never been the most expensive fast food chain out there. Yes, some of its items can be more expensive than everyone would like (and, to be honest, sometimes people feel that those expensive items don’t reflect their price in what you actually get), but generally speaking, it’s not going to break the bank. You get what you pay for at Taco Bell – it’s not gourmet – but what you pay is generally not astronomical. 

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Some customers, though, are finding that what they’re paying feels a liiiiittle unequal to what other folks are stumping up. A recent examination of Taco Bell prices has found that they can vary pretty wildly from location to location – even those that are close to each other. 

Taco Bell: A Tale Of Two Prices

A reporter over at Delish decided to take a look at Taco Bell prices and how they vary from store to store, following a video from @justkingkev, in which the creator also did the same thing. Both were looking at Taco Bell restaurants in New York City, specifically. 

What both Delish and @justkingkev found was that prices were indeed very variable, even when restaurants were in near proximity to each other. Delish, for example, found that Crunchwraps in Manhattan could vary from $6.29 to $8.99 when ordered online, while some Luxe Boxes went for between $6.99 and $14.99. @justkingkev found much the same thing when looking at stores just a few blocks away from one another. 

What’s The Deal? 

So, first off, we should say that it’s not unusual in the slightest for restaurants to vary their prices from store to store. What a fast food location or store can charge for its food can often be dependent on rent cost, traffic, competition, and what kind of model it operates under (ie, whether it’s a franchise or not) – which is why companies usually give a recommended retail price instead of a blanket one, unless they’re promoting specific value meals or menus. This is likely a significant factor here: Despite some of these Taco Bells being close to each other, the units they’re located at might cost way more or less to rent. 

That said, these differences are stark enough to be picked up on, and Delish questioned whether surge pricing (which may well be coming to Walmart more widely) is at play here, too. This pricing model is every business’s new favorite, despite customers generally not liking it – but when Delish reached out to Taco Bell, it didn’t receive any response. Next time you’re ordering online, though, it might be worth checking to see if any different stores are in proximity, to see if you can score a cheaper price.