Mitla Cafe

Mitla Cafe is a Mexican restaurant on Mount Vernon Avenue in San Bernardino, opened in 1937 by Lucia and Salvador Rodriguez, whose crisp-fried tacos are widely cited as the inspiration for Taco Bell.

History

Lucia Rodriguez and her husband Salvador, immigrants from Mexico, opened the cafe in 1937 on a stretch of Mount Vernon Avenue that formed part of Route 66. In 1948 Glen Bell opened a hamburger stand across the street. Bell befriended the family, studied how the kitchen fried its taco shells and added tacos to his own menu; he went on to open Taco Tia in 1954 and later Taco Bell, whose first restaurant opened in Downey in 1962. Accounts of the episode often describe the technique as borrowed without credit, and a photograph of Bell hangs among the cafe's wall of portraits.

The restaurant also has a place in civil-rights history. Cesar Chavez ate there when he was in town, and the Rodriguez family's circle of business and civic leaders was involved in a 1940s lawsuit over Mexican Americans' access to a public pool, a case that helped set the stage for the 1946 ruling against segregated California schools.

Menu

The best-known dish is the hard-shell taco, a fried tortilla shell filled with seasoned ground or shredded beef, cheese, lettuce and tomato in the manner of tacos dorados. The menu also includes al pastor and fish tacos, albóndigas soup, and red and green pozole on weekends.

Reviews

See also

• Hard-shell taco
• Tacos dorados

References

1. "Mitla Cafe". Atlas Obscura. Retrieved 2026-10-10.
2. "How Taco Bell Was Founded On A Stolen Idea". The Takeout. Retrieved 2026-10-10.