The next time you visit a Taco Bell it may not look like the restaurant of your memory, and depending where you live, may not even be through a drive-thru. We’re pulling back the curtains on our development plans, including expanding our presence in New York City.

New York has historically been an underserved market for Taco Bell, but we’re changing that, and have agreements on 125 metro New York restaurants in the next five years. Our Cantina and Urban In-Line concepts give us the flexibility to expand into cities in ways that allow us to meet our customers wherever they are.

Here’s a look at how we’ve been doing just that:

• Over the past year we’ve opened six new urban concepts – three Urban In-Line and three Cantina restaurants – in the boroughs of New York, with plans to open three more NYC Cantinas by the end of the year at 500 8th Avenue, 840 8th Avenue and 224 7th Avenue
• We’ve opened a total of 16 Cantina or Urban In-Line restaurants in cities across the country in the past year, with additional new locations planned for Brooklyn, NY, Chicago, IL, Boulder, CO, Hollywood, CA and Madison, WI.
• We’ve opened 90 new U.S. restaurants as of July 2018, with 100 more set to open by the end of the year.
• We plan to open 1,000 new domestic restaurants by 2022 - 300 of which will be Urban In-Line or Cantina concepts, and 125 of which will be in New York City and the surrounding boroughs.
• By the end of 2018, Taco Bell will have more than 500 international restaurants in nearly 30 markets around the world, with the goal of expanding the brand’s international footprint to 1,000 restaurants by 2022.
• With domestic and international growth combined, by 2022 the brand plans to operate 9,000 restaurants globally.

Our Urban In-Line and Cantina restaurants are tailored for highly-walkable areas and do not have drive-thrus. Whether in the heart of New York City, or steps from the boardwalk in Newport Beach, these restaurants are designed to fit their local community, with open-kitchen concepts, local artwork, shareable tapas-style menus, free WiFi for customers, outlets for charging devices and modern restaurant designs that invite customers to stay and socialize over their meal. These smaller format restaurants (our Newport Beach Cantina is the smallest Taco Bell in the U.S. at just 1,200 square feet!) allow us to enter markets in ways we couldn’t before.

As our restaurant locations grow, we’re also continuing to look for new ways to elevate the customer experience both in and outside of the restaurant, including the partnership with GrubHub announced earlier this year and testing new technologies like self-service kiosks in select markets. In fact, Taco Bell is planning to have 4,500 U.S. restaurants online on GrubHub by the end of 2018 and kiosks in every restaurant in America by the end of 2019.

Given Taco Bell’s growing business, it’s more important than ever to hire great employees, which is why we’re also exploring new ways to attract and hire top talent. We recently tested a recruiting concept in Indianapolis that showcased our unique culture and employee benefits in a house-party-like setting. This resulted in 73 in-person applicants and 40 new hires, along with 314 online applications as a result of job postings and promotion around the hiring event, bringing the total number of applications to 387 for Indianapolis job-seekers within the span of four days!

We’re excited about the future of Taco Bell, where our top focus will always be craveable food and the Taco Bell culture that people want to be part of. Come check out what’s new – in New York and around the country.