Taco Bell's Decades Menu Brings Back Old Faves, And We Ranked Them

Taco Bell released its newest limited-time offering today, and it involves an entire selection called the Decades Menu. There are five items in total representing Taco Bell of decades past, and each one represents a particular decade. The tostada is the oldest and hails from the '60s. It consists of a crispy round corn tostada shell topped with refried beans, red sauce, lettuce, and shredded cheese. Then there's the Green Sauce Burrito representing the '70s, which features refried beans, onions, shredded cheddar, and a green chili, tomatillo, and jalapeño salsa. The item from the '80s is the Meximelt, which has seasoned beef, pico de gallo, and a three-cheese blend in a flour tortilla, and to round off the savory items is the '90s Gordita Supreme, which features seasoned beef, sour cream, lettuce, tomatoes, and a three-cheese blend, all folded in a soft flatbread. 

The final item, the Caramel Apple Empanada, represents the aughts, and actually isn't out yet — that dessert drops on November 21 for a limited time as well. I headed to my local Taco Bell today to give all of the four savory items a try, and I decided to rank everything on my stroll down Taco Bell's version of memory lane.

To recap, Taco Bell's Tostada is a simple concoction of refried beans, red sauce, lettuce, and shredded cheddar, all on a flat and crunchy tostada shell. It cost me $2.39 (my Chicago location is more expensive than average), and out of all four of the items I tried, it came in last place. And not because it's bad at all — in fact, I mostly liked it. It's just because it was a little on the blander side, with most of its bulk coming from the huge pile of plain refried beans on top. This thing was seriously heavy, and I'm surprised it didn't crack as I was eating it.

The Tostada really needed the help of a sauce packet or two to keep things interesting, and if you're going to order it, I'd suggest you tinker with the toppings a little by adding extra things like sour cream, tomatoes, or guacamole. It's important to note that a version of the Taco Bell Tostada actually stuck around for quite a long time; the Spicy Tostada was removed from the permanent menu in 2020 in an effort to streamline operations during the pandemic. Then of course, there was the recent Big Cheez-It Tostada.

When I ask my friends about which discontinued items they miss most, the Meximelt often comes up. This is why I can just feel that some of you are going to hate me for putting the Meximelt, which is made with seasoned beef, shredded three-cheese blend, and pico de gallo in a soft taco tortilla, in third place ($2.99 at my location). It was removed from the menu in 2019, and for whatever reason, it was never something I ordered back in the day, so I have no personal attachment to it.

It's fine, I guess? Don't get me wrong, it's definitely more flavorful than the Tostada thanks to the seasoned beef, but come on, everyone — it's only three ingredients. Part of the nostalgia I think comes from the fact that it was always one of the cheaper items on Taco Bell's menu, and people could basically scrounge together some couch change in order to get one. I do appreciate the fact that it has pico de gallo on it as opposed to plain tomatoes, because that gives the whole thing an extra bit of flavor. But all things considered, this thing's pretty small, and at $2.99 without any bells and whistles, I'm inclined to think the Meximelt is overpriced.

Okay, now the Gordita Supreme ($2.99) I do have a personal attachment to. I used to order this thing all the time, because they were pretty substantial for the price, and I'm happy to say the revived version is 100% the thing I remember. It's pretty much a Soft Taco Supreme in Taco Bell's Gordita flatbread, except instead of plain cheddar, it's a three-cheese blend (fun fact, when that flatbread is fried, it becomes a Chalupa shell). 

That mix of seasoned beef, shredded cheese, tomato, lettuce, and sour cream is a tried-and-true classic, and considering it costs the same exact amount as a Soft Taco Supreme at my Taco Bell location, I think getting one of these instead is a much better option. I like that pita-like flatbread too — it's marshmallow-soft and barely has any texture to it, but let's be real: Some of Taco Bell's stuff doesn't have any other texture other than than soft (for example, the classic bean burrito). Taco Bell always carries all of the ingredients for Gordita Supremes as components of other items, so I'm still baffled that it chose to pull them from the menu to begin with. Bring it back until the end of time, Taco Bell!

It comes somewhat as a surprise to me that a fairly plain-sounding Green Sauce Burrito (essentially just a refried bean burrito with onions, shredded cheddar, and green tomatillo and chile sauce) took the number one spot, but life is truly a rich tapestry. Or in this case, a rich Decades Menu. If you look carefully at the other Decades Menu items, though, you'll probably notice that everything included in them is just a combination of regular old ingredients Taco Bell always has on hand. 

The Green Sauce Burrito, however, is the only item with a novel ingredient in the form of that green tomatillo chile salsa, which is interesting because Taco Bell rarely favors green salsas aside from that relatively new one-off Avocado Verde Salsa that you have to pay for. And you can really taste it here. Since there's only refried beans, onions, and cheese in this thing, the tart salsa comes through front and center, and it even has that thick and naturally sort of jelly-like texture of tomatillos to it. If you want to try the one "new" old thing on the Decades Menu, this is the one to try, because you won't be menu-hack your own version together due to that unique sauce.

One thing I find interesting about this Decades Menu is that three out of the five items (I'm including the Caramel Apple Empanada in this statement) are vegetarian, and a vegetarian item took the top spot. Whether that's just a sly move to save Taco Bell some money in terms of ingredients, I don't know, but it's definitely something worth pointing out. Taco Bell's heavily marketed itself as vegetarian-friendly, but I've long suspected that's because profit margins are better with vegetarian products than they are with items including meat.

But overall, it's fun to see all these old things nestled together. And unlike previous novelty items, nothing on the Decades Menu is listed over $2.99, which is somewhat of a relief to see. If you want to relive your version of the good old days, I think you'll be happy with the selection here, so one of these things is bound to satisfy you. It's hard not to wish all of these old Taco Bell alumni would come back permanently, but we all know that Taco Bell loves to discontinue foods and bring them back so we open up our wallets just one more time.