Grand Opening of Taco Kid on Oberlin Avenue – October 1970

Yes, the Taco Kid rides again on this blog. 

The building at 4300 Oberlin Ave.
that was home to Taco Kid

It seems that I keep coming up with more things to write about this forgotten Mexican fast food chain, which had outlets in Lorain on West Erie Avenue (the building that houses Chapman’s Food Mart) and Oberlin Avenue (where Exhale Hooka Lounge is located). I'm still impressed that this little-known franchise beat Taco Bell to Lorain.

And fifty years ago this month, Taco Kid was holding a Grand Opening of the store on Oberlin Avenue.

Here’s the ad that ran in the Journal on October 16, 1970.

And a day later, this ad ran in the paper.

As I mentioned on an earlier post, the chain was originally called Taco Boy when the West Erie Avenue store opened in 1969. But by early 1970, it had been renamed Taco Kid (which I discussed on this post). 

By October 1970, it seems that only the Oberlin Avenue restaurant was still part of the chain (since it was the only location being advertised). Perhaps a Grand Opening being held so many months after the store first opened was due to a change in ownership or something.

Anyway, a month later, Taco Kid held an unusual promotion – a souvenir poster that was 25 cents with any purchase. Here’s the Journal ad from November 27, 1970.

So why do I think the poster promotion was unusual? Because the poster was for a (fictional) movie called "Midnight Sancho" – a takeoff on Midnight Cowboy. The stars of Taco Kid’s movie was Putsom Meatinya and Bidda Hunkov.

Here’s a copy of the poster. I’m surprised that there are still a few of these floating around the United States.

As you can see, it is indeed a takeoff on Midnight Cowboy’s poster. The burrito on the right is wearing the same fringed cowboy jacket as Jon Voigt did on the Midnight Cowboy movie poster, and the burrito on the left has on the long coat that Dustin Hoffman was wearing. (There’s even a tiny bit of the light pole that was on the Midnight Cowboy poster.)

I wonder what advertising agency thought it was a good idea to tie in the Taco Kid name with an X-rated film about (as Wikipedia puts it) “the unlikely friendship between two hustlers: naive prostitute Joe Buck (Voigt) and ailing con man “Ratso” Rizzo (Hoffman).”

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Although the smell of the hookah smoke now wafts on Oberlin Avenue where once the aroma of tacos and burritos drifted, there’s still one tell-tale sign of the building's origin as a Mexican fast-food joint: its windows.

A realty website reveals that the original half-dome windows from Taco Boy/Taco Kid days are still visible from the inside.