Taco Bell's 4th Meal

Three meals a day used to be enough.

Breakfast, lunch and dinner had traditionally always been able to satisfy our constant hunger pains.

Then fast food chains decided that they could convince us to come in more than three times a day. It makes perfect sense. They figured out before we did that we really like to eat 4 meals a day with two snacks in between. Are they wrong?

Think about how many times you eat a day. It's likely you eat breakfast, have a morning snack, eat lunch, around 3pm have a afternoon snack, get some dinner and finally late in the evening eat one more time before going to bed.

If this is you then almost every fast food chain out there has your schedule covered.

Let's use McDonald's:

8am: Egg McMuffin
10am: Iced Coffee and Chicken Biscuit
12pm: Big Mac and Fries
3pm: Snack Wrap
6pm: Quarter Pounder with Cheese
10pm - Later: McFlurry, Ice Cream, Shake or any other item on the menu.

Of course, while many chains offer a similar "all day menu" few of them will blatantly promote the fact that they want you coming in every three hours to eat. Except for one.

Taco Bell.

I have found that Taco Bell always tastes best in moments of outright desperation.....like at midnight after a Dave Matthews Band concert in the middle of July when you have been sweating your butt off for four hours thinking about food that costs less than $10 stadium food.

In moments like this, Taco Bell is the holy grail of food. Additionally, for some unknown reason it tastes better at night, in the dark (when you can't see the grubs in the food).

Hence Taco Bell's strategy: the invention of "The 4th Meal." It's that meal in between dinner and breakfast...sometime between 10pm and 7am. Taco Bell owns this time period and they are on a mission to declare it. They have even taken it to the extreme as to host the website fourthmeal.com

No other chain has pushed the envelope this far as to completely invent a new meal time, promote the day part and then build their operations, marketing and products around it.

So, back to my moment of desperation.

I was hot and hungry. I knew that Taco Bell was the only place open and I also knew they had a new product that looked rather appetizing: Queso Crunchwrap.

The commercial made it look good and because of my irrational thinking at such a late hour, I made the decision that the advertising was true and I needed the Queso Crunchwrap immediately.

My delirious prediction was correct. It was amazing. I have no idea how Taco Bell makes such great tasting food so cheaply, and I don't think I ever want to know. The taste combination was perfect, the price was perfect and the portion was perfect.

And yes.....it was my 4th meal of the day (don't tell my wife).

I know what you're going to say. Taco Bell has all kinds of great tasting late at night menu options and yes you're right. However, the Queso Crunchwrap was the best thing I have had at Taco Bell in a very long time. For some reason beyond my control, the magic of Taco Bell at midnight filled my spirit and I left satisfied.

I guess the bottom line is this - if you're going to eat four times a day (and you probably will) you might as well make Taco Bell you're 4th choice. I suppose when it comes to fast food, coming in 4th place isn't necessarily a bad thing.