The Taco Bell Interstate Map

If you insist on only eating at a Taco Bell while driving cross-country then you need Think Outside the Bun. Think Outside the Bus is an interactive map of Taco Bell locations across the United States. For Taco Bell enthusiasts, this map is an invaluable tool, showing which states, cities, and even interstates offer the best access to affordable Mexican-inspired cuisine.

The map uses the size of each U.S. interstate to reflect the number of Taco Bells located along each route. According to the developer (via Reddit) , “I did a 5-mile buffer to count the number of Taco Bells for each major interstate. The ones that are marked are the ones with the most in that analysis.” Based on this method, Interstates 10, 95, 75, and 5 have the highest concentration of Taco Bells within the 5-mile buffer zone (although the data might be more insightful if adjusted for interstate length to provide a distribution ratio).

The map's sidebar reveals that the three states with the most Taco Bell restaurants are California, Texas, and Florida. Wait a minute - I smell a conspiracy here. Coincidentally (or not), these are also the three most populous states in the U.S. It’s almost as if Taco Bell strategically locates their restaurants near where people actually live and eat. However, I'm not sure that population density alone explains why Houston has the most Taco Bells of any city (66) - which is a full third more than Las Vegas (44)*.

You may also like the U.S. Chain and Independent Restaurants map, by the Georgia Institute of Technology's Friendly Cities Lab, which shows the locations of over 700,000 restaurants across the country, organized by restaurant chain and by frequency. 

* - I asked ChatGPT:  'Houston is known for its sprawling geography, with low-density suburbs and a car-centric culture. This layout is ideal for fast-food establishments like Taco Bell, which often rely on drive-thru business and larger properties for their locations. The density and urban planning in other large cities, like New York or Los Angeles, may limit the number of drive-thru restaurants.'