Ed Hackbarth was, and remains, a man with a keen eye. The fast food founder must have seen something that others missed out in the Mojave Desert town of Yermo because, nearly 64 years ago, he opened the first ever Del Taco there. The tiny, sun-beaten stand couldn’t have looked like much when the first few locals spotted it through their sunglasses, but that’s all right. Hackbarth had a bigger vision.
He knew, for example, that the soon speedy Interstate 15 would pave over old routes on the way to the golden slot machines of Las Vegas, connecting a booming Southern California to endless gambling and day trips around the Grand Canyon. An interstate like that meant a lot of cars with a lot of passengers in need of a bite to eat — and Hackbarth knew just what to feed them, too: hard-shelled tacos.
He wasn’t just guessing. Having previously co-owned a Barstow outpost of Taco Tia, a now largely forgotten chain under none other than Glen Bell (who would go on to found Taco Bell in 1962), Hackbarth knew that tacos were a rising star. So Yermo it was, with the world’s first Del Taco (then called Casa del Taco) starting up in October 1961, less than half a mile from the freeway. “Look for the Big Sombrero sign,” read the regional Desert Dispatch newspaper at the time.
That streamlined little Del Taco reportedly made $169, equivalent to roughly 900 tacos, on its first day of business; Hackbarth never had a doubt. Soon, Del Taco would fan out across the desert, adding addresses in Needles and beyond. Just a couple of years after opening, the man even expanded the brand into his old Barstow workplace, flipping the former Taco Tia on New Year’s Day. A public notice printed in the paper assured residents that the “quality & delicious” food they’d relied on would remain, as would the “low prices.”
Soon enough, Barstow — home to two transcontinental railroads, the historic Route 66 and that speedy new freeway — became a conflux of past and future. It was a dusty city on the rise. And Hackbarth, the sly visionary, was perched at the pinpoint of it all, keeping watch.
In fact, he still is.
Some six decades later, the 91-year-old Hackbarth is alive and happy, a tiny California fast food king overseeing a desert fiefdom of unique Del Tacos that, despite the corporate signage, don’t conform to the rules. These are the Original Del Tacos, capital O, a trio of buildings that double as a kind of chain restaurant multiverse. You see, the Barstow locations are owned entirely by Hackbarth, part of an unlikely deal the man made after selling his company in the 1970s. He’d be allowed to run his small desert empire, the contract language said, while the rest of Del Taco went off toward a boomtown horizon.
Today, that other Del Taco has nearly 600 locations across the nation; Ed has three. But he’s winning.
Ask anyone who’s stopped at the Lenwood Road location just off I-15 near the outlet malls, and they’ll tell you that this Del Taco isn’t just different —it’s better. There’s the funky interior, for one, complete with an ’80s-looking drop ceiling and a massive, multiroom dining area. There’s the wall of old photographs, showing Hackbarth at his peak. Instead of waiting for a loudspeaker to squawk out a computer-printed number, workers deliver the food right to customers’ tables, where bountiful bowls of free sauce packets await. Each is stamped with his retro version of the Del Taco sun logo, an umber-toned swirl that looks almost like a circular saw blade. And near the soda fountain, behind plexiglass, is the merch, including a T-shirt that prominently features a man in dress pants riding a Del Taco-branded Jet Ski while holding a paper bag of food.
But the highlight of the place, the reason you’ll often find weekend lines inside, is a segmented part of the hanging menu board simply titled “Barstow Classics.” These are essentially the original items, still made in the Yermo way. They don’t exist on any other Del Taco menu in America, save for these three Barstow blips, and only for one very specific reason: Because Ed says so. Hackbarth is the ghost in the fast food machine.
The most nostalgic fans will be pulled in by the bun taco, which is what it sounds like: seasoned ground beef piled between a burger bun with all the regular taco toppings — in this case, unmelted cheese, a wide tomato slice and some lettuce. It’s a menu item Hackbarth actually perfected once before, back in his Taco Tia days.
The rest of the menu is dotted with finds, too. The hard-shelled tacos, heavy enough as to be overflowing, are the everyman’s answer, served with a tomato slice right on top. The tostada, another Barstow exclusive, flattens the tortilla out but otherwise piles it all up just the same. Paper cups come with beans, beef and cheese (it’s called a combo cup here), and there are taco salads and spicy jack quesadillas and other bits that longtime fans can’t find anywhere else. There are ice cream sundaes to beat the searing heat, but oddest of all is the random dessert case to the right of the registers, which contains small loaves of carrot cake and chocolate chip cookies.
None of these items will best your favorite local taqueria, but they’re all a bit of living flavor history, better prepared and more abundant than any skimpy modern fast food menu.
The surprises aren’t just delivered on trays, either. Arrive on the right day, and you might find the silver-haired Hackbarth still fulfilling his duties behind the counter, handing off bags of food in a button-up with a stitched-on insignia that simply reads “Ed.” He doesn’t show up as often these days (it’s a far drive from his house in Dana Point), but YouTubers and surprised fans can still spot him from time to time. He’s slow on his feet yet quick with a smile, a micro-celebrity who still loves to look after the old place, just as he always has.
That long-term vision has taken Del Taco from a sandy stand in Yermo to regional supremacy at the fringe of the Mojave Desert — and eventually to a national empire built on Ed’s belief that people would be willing to pull off the freeway for a taco or two. Looking back, I’m sure it must seem to Hackbarth like the whole thing happened in a flash. Time and nostalgia will do that to a memory.
Just three years after the 1961 opening at the now-closed Yermo location, Hackbarth brought on a partner, David Jameson, and the pair soon breezed through Victorville en route to a massive franchise rollout across Southern California. By 1976, Del Taco had a whopping 50 stores, far too many for the founder to possibly keep an eye on, so he sold the brand and parked his company car in Barstow for good.
Just two years later, with new stewards at the helm, Del Taco reached 100 locations; the payday-seeking, corporate streamlining was well underway. Today’s Del Taco might beat Hackbarth purely on the number of stores, but they’ll never outlast his heart. In time, the brand fell into the hands of Jack in the Box, and rumors persist that the company, once again, could be pushed off to a new buyer soon.
Just don’t count the Barstow locations as part of that deal.
For a timeless peek at what used to be, slide into a booth sometime on the long road between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. Enjoy a tostada and a combo cup. And who knows, Hackbarth might just be back there, wrapping up the next taco for the drive-thru. Most of the dining room, truckers and vacationers and fast-eating families, likely won’t have any idea who the nonagenarian behind the counter is, and that’s okay. Everyone else who sees him will know that they’re dining inside the dream that Ed built back in 1961.
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