Taco Bell's Live Más Café Adds Six Sites, Chases $5 Billion Beverage Goal

Taco Bell operates 39 Live Más Café locations today and wants one inside every U.S. Taco Bell eventually. That ambition now has a number attached: a $5 billion annual beverage sales target by 2030. The chain disclosed no timeline for the per-store conversion, and no unit-count target for the café format itself.

The immediate expansion is concrete. Taco Bell will add at least six sites: three in Indiana, a Las Vegas Strip flagship, and three Southern California cafés.

Where is the concept growing?

The Las Vegas flagship arrives later this year inside a shipping container adjacent to the Taco Bell Cantina at 3717 S Las Vegas Blvd, Ste 140-A. Longtime franchisee Diversified Restaurant Group will operate it. DRG debuted the Live Más Café format for the system outside San Diego in late 2024, so the Las Vegas project extends an existing relationship rather than starting a new one.

Indiana marks the concept's first Midwest entry:

• West Lafayette — opens October 22, first of the three
• Greenfield and Muncie — planned before the end of 2026
• Two will be company-operated; KMAC Enterprises, the newest franchise development partner, will run the third

Southern California growth continues with a café at Century City Mall and two more planned in Irvine and Tustin later this year.

Taco Bell did not disclose development costs, average unit volumes, or check averages for the café format. The company said the concept exceeded its unit expectations in 2025 but did not say what those expectations were.

What is driving the menu?

The platform rests on more than 20 specialty beverages plus alcohol at select sites, including the Boozy Mountain Dew Baja Blast, Strawberry Passionfruit Refresca Rush, and Cold Brew Cinnatini. Beverage-led formats carry lower food cost complexity than full kitchens, which explains the shipping-container build in Las Vegas; the company did not share buildout figures.

Four new horchata-inspired drinks join the menu, all priced between $4.19 and $5.29:

• Purple Horchata Chiller — vanilla ice cream Chiller base, horchata syrup, whipped cream, purple syrup drizzle ($4.19 small / $4.59 medium)
• Chocolate Horchata Cold Brew Float — cold brew under a horchata Chiller blend with churro crumbles and dark chocolate syrup ($4.79 small / $5.29 medium)
• Strawberry Horchata Refresca — vanilla-spiced drink, wild strawberry swirl, freeze-dried strawberry pieces over ice ($4.19 medium / $4.59 large)
• Vanilla Spiced Horchata Refresca — vanilla-spiced drink with cinnamon notes ($4.19 medium / $4.59 large)

Horchata is not a niche bet. The flavor appeared on menus at 130 U.S. chains in Q2 2026, according to Technomic, concentrated in Mexican-cuisine quick service and fast casual. Taco Bell is following a documented trend, not creating one.

What did executives say?

Liz Matthews, Taco Bell's global chief food innovation officer, framed the expansion as demand-driven. "Our fans have always loved our beverages, and the response to Live Más Café has shown us they're craving even more," she said in a statement. "Seeing that excitement continue to grow across our cafés tells us we're onto something special, and we're ready to take it even further with bold new drinks and more ways for fans to experience Live Más Café."

The statement is a promise without attached figures. Taco Bell has not published café-level sales, margin data, or beverage mix percentages. The claim that the concept beat its 2025 unit targets cannot be independently tested without the original targets.

Can the model travel?

Taco Bell said it is exploring how the beverage platform could translate to international markets. The company named no markets, no partners, and no dates. That is exploratory language, not a committed rollout.

The context matters. Technomic's Top 500 data shows chain restaurant sales slowed again in 2025 as consumers pulled back on dining, while coffee, beverages, snacks, and chicken outperformed. Live Más Café sits squarely in the resilient category. Whether a café inside every domestic Taco Bell pencil out depends on sales-per-square-foot data Taco Bell has not released, and the October 22 West Lafayette opening will offer the first Midwest test of whether beverage demand holds outside California, Texas, and Nevada.