Taco Bell’s Drink Shop May Be Coming to a Place Near You
The chain’s beverage-forward concept is set to open in Texas as it spreads nationwide.
Photo courtesy of Taco Bell
Taco Bell fans, drink this in: The chain is expanding its less-than-a-year-old beverage-forward cafe concept — Live Más Café — beyond Southern California for the first time.
The opening of two new cafés in Texas — one in Dallas on November 6 and another in Houston on November 20 — mark the beginning of the nationwide rollout of Live Más Cafés that Taco Bell announced this summer.
“We’re seeing today that people, especially younger consumers, are reaching for refreshing drinks as part of their lifestyle, whether it’s for energy or a sweet treat throughout the day,” Liz Matthews, Taco Bell’s global chief food innovation officer, said in June, when the chain shared plans to open 30 Live Más Cafés throughout Southern California and Texas by, well, around now.
Consequently, Matthews said, Taco Bell was “making big investments to become the ultimate beverage stop” offering “bold” and creative drinks.
Photo courtesy of Taco Bell
What are Taco Bell’s Live Más Cafés?
Taco Bell opened its first Live Más Cafés in Southern California in late 2024. Each location offers popular Taco Bell menu items with a broad lineup of more than 20 “handcrafted” drinks — made to order by staff members known as “Bellristas.” The drinks include Chillers (shake-like, blended icy drinks), Agua Refrescas (fruit-flavored, lightly caffeinated drinks made with freeze-dried fruit pieces and green tea) and Cinnabon Iced Coffee.
At launch, the atmosphere of the initial Live Más Café locations was sunny, soothingly lavender and high-tech, with orders placed via electronic “kiosks.” The cafés, which also had drive-throughs, were open daily from 7 a.m. to 3 a.m.
(I got a taste of Live Más Cafés’ beverage offerings this spring at the Live Más Live event in Brooklyn, New York. The drinks on offer ranged from fruity and refreshing to decadent and creamy. Some of the beverages leaned hard into sweet. Others held back and were a bit more subtle. All were delish.)
Taco Bell says the success of these first locations is driving this broader rollout. The Live Más Café in Irvine, California, which just opened in September 2025, is already selling more than 900 drinks per day, with one out of every three orders including a Live Más Café-exclusive drink.
Photo courtesy of Taco Bell
Why is Taco Bell opening drink cafés?
Taco Bell customers are apparently thirsty. The chain says that, from January through August 2025 alone, it had already sold more than 600 million beverages — 16 percent more than it had during the same period in 2024. What’s more, according to the brand, 62 percent of all orders placed at Taco Bell thus far in 2025 have included a beverage.
Taco Bell says it would like to see its beverage business hit $5 billion by 2030 and that it is “making strong progress” toward meeting this goal.
“Live Más Café was created in response to what we’re seeing from Gen Z, a real cultural shift where beverages are becoming lifestyle drivers,” Taco Bell Global Chief Brand Officer Taylor Montgomery says in a statement. “We’ve always been about bold innovation … Live Más Café is another example of how we take what we do best — craveable, fun and a little bit rebellious — and bring it into a whole new space.”
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