This past year had the taste of nostalgia.
From Taco Bell’s revival of Mexican pizza to McDonald’s Adult Happy Meals, restaurants were promoting the past in 2022.
Mexican Pizza was a permanent menu item until Irvine, California-based Taco Bell withdrew it in 2020. Fans clamored to get it back, inspiring a social-media campaign that lasted for months and included influencers such as Doja Cat giving it a shoutout on the main stage of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in April. Dolly Parton got in on the act, appearing in “Mexican Pizza: The Musical” on TikTok.
Mexican Pizza returned to the menu in May but was quickly withdrawn when demand caused supplies to run out. After more months of drama, Taco Bell brought it back in September, presumably for good.
McDonald’s Adult Happy Meal was a collaboration with streetwear company Cactus Plant Flea Market that included a collectible figure in a box that resembled a children’s combo. It rapidly sold out at most McDonald’s locations in a matter of hours or days in October. But McDonald’s followed up by serving regular Happy Meals in retro Halloween pails.
These products were introduced in the 1970s through the 1990s, meaning that the largest groups of fast-food consumers might have been able to experience them as children. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, those are people ages 20-39 and 40-59.
“It’s all about getting people in the door, and what are you going to sell them on? Food quality, food price and I presume memories,” said Christopher Thornberg, director of the University of California Riverside’s School of Business Center for Economic Forecasting and Development. “I don’t think there’s anything terribly unusual here.”
But current events might strengthen the urge to revisit the past. The COVID-19 pandemic and fears that the United States might be moving into a recession are possible factors in the trend, according to Margaret Campbell, associate dean and department chair at UC Riverside’s School of Business.
“The notion that a restaurant would be offering something that allows adults to feel nostalgic about the past and engage in an experience that lets them live that nostalgia in a positive way can provide a social connectedness feeling for people to a happier time, or at least a remembered happy time,” she said in a phone interview.