The Choco Taco is dead. Long live the Choco Taco!

Do I have an opinion on the Choco Taco and its discontinuation? Hell no! But this cycle we’ve all been pushed into, where corporations are teasing the ends of their products in order to feed on the outrage like vultures on carrion, is so transparent, it’s funny. And I do have some thoughts about that.

Klondike’s announcement of the “end” of the Choco Taco on July 25 hit a raw nerve of nostalgia and birthed a week-long news cycle, which amounts to a public relations coup. Obituaries were posted; artisanal alternatives were suggested. Stephen King tweeted, “If Choco Tacos are gone, what’s next? Hershey Pies? Salt and vinegar potato chips? Baseball? AMERICAN DEMOCRACY? I tell you: this is how it starts.”

And then the company walked back the announcement a week later.

On August 3, the official Klondike Twitter account wrote, “We know this is disappointing - we’ve heard our fans, and we’re hoping to bring this favorite treat back to ice cream trucks in the coming years!”

It’s tempting to think that Internet outrage was what brought the Choco Taco back, but I wouldn’t pull out the “Mission Accomplished!” banners just yet. Y’all, you’ve been here before.

In 2020, Taco Bell announced it would stop selling Mexican pizzas because their packaging was too environmentally unsustainable. One petition and year’s worth of complaints later, guess what? It returned to the menu, with the CEO citing a sevenfold increase in sales of the item. I am grateful that, so far, we have been spared the (hopefully forever) postponed Dolly Parton-led musical that would tell the story of how Mexican pizza was saved from oblivion by fans. (For its part, Klondike claims the Choco Taco gambit wasn’t a PR stunt. Sure — neither was that “IPA theme park” in Wine Country, then. I’m officially coming out as a Choco Taco conspiracy theorist.)

What these companies are tapping into, and quite effectively, is a general malaise and helplessness that has sunk into so many people in the fast few years. Call me overly optimistic, but I have to think that an empowered, healthy populace wouldn’t be so easily riled up about a product line being discontinued. I can’t keep coal and oil companies from pumping out greenhouse gases, but darn it, I can at least chow down on a Choco Taco while watching the ice caps melt.

Because it feels good to make change, doesn’t it? People obviously want to claim their own power, to protest and feel heard. But in this age of constant bad news and increasingly entrenched monopolies on political power, it’s all too easy to feel hopeless. When the CDC arbitrarily decides during a global pandemic that no one needs to get vaccinated anymore, what are you gonna do about it, peasant? When the people who are supposed to govern us are on the National Rifle Association’s payroll, can normal, non-rich people meaningfully curb gun violence in our communities? No wonder we seek easier bounties.

For all the dramatics of his slippery slope argument, maybe Stephen King was right after all.

I’m sure there are multiple corporate marketing arms currently dreaming up the next thing to take away, and I’m already dreading the think-pieces that’ll come out when teriyaki Spam and Count Chocula get their time on the pretend chopping block.

Since 2019, Soleil Ho has been The Chronicle's Restaurant Critic, spearheading Bay Area restaurant recommendations through the flagship Top Restaurants series. In 2022, they won a Craig Claiborne Distinguished Restaurant Review Award from the James Beard Foundation.

Ho also writes features and cultural commentary, specializing in the ways that our food reflects the way we live. Their essay on pandemic fine dining domes was featured in the 2021 Best American Food Writing anthology. Ho also hosts The Chronicle's food podcast, Extra Spicy, and has a weekly newsletter called Bite Curious.

Previously, Ho worked as a freelance food and pop culture writer, as a podcast producer on the Racist Sandwich, and as a restaurant chef. Illustration courtesy of Wendy Xu.