Taco Bell recently took to its backyard to test its latest limited-time product, at the Von Karman Plaza shopping center in Irvine.
As another installation of its popular chip collaborations, Taco Bell announced the Big Cheez-It Tostada would be available at the restaurant in Irvine for about two weeks ending this past Sunday on July 4th.
The dish was made up of a large Cheez-It cracker replacing the typical hard-shell tortilla, which the restaurant chain said was 16 times larger than the snack’s original size. A digital exclusive offered the product’s counterpart, the Big Cheez-It Crunchwrap Supreme, which also swapped the original tostada shell for the oversized cracker.
Test items like this have been offered exclusively at OC restaurants in the past, but the company holds no preference when releasing new menu items in growing markets.
“As an Irvine-based company, the restaurant on Barranca is core to our testing efforts and serves as an unofficial extension of our Taco Bell Test Kitchen,” a Taco Bell spokesperson told the Business Journal.
The chain’s global headquarters has called Irvine home for the past 40 years. The headquarters on 1 Glen Bell Way, is named after the company’s founder. This is also where the restaurant’s official test kitchen is stationed.
In honor of its 60th year, Taco Bell hosted an employee celebration event at its headquarters last month, which included highlighting its very first restaurant building, uprooted from Downey back in 2015.