I’ve kept my silence on this subject long enough, dear readers, and it would be unfair – nay, criminal – for me to continue holding my peace. As someone with a social conscience and access to such a large potential readership, it is my duty to address the great travesty that has been perpetuated against us all for so long.

Of what travesty do I speak? Santa Barbara’s utter lack of a Del Taco franchise.

I know that this is a painful subject for many of you. The mere mention of Del Taco around my roommate causes her eyes to grow wide with visions of spicy jack quesadillas. I, myself, am haunted by apparitions of bean and cheese burritos doused in mild sauce.

Everyone has their own fast food proclivities, but it seems to me that I know more people with a sheer love of Del Taco than any other fast-food eatery. Could it be that lovers of particular fast food are magnetically drawn to one another? That down the hall lay a coven of KFC devotees? That, across the street, the McDonald’s aficionados are entrenched?

I think not.

I believe the Del Taco phenomenon to be unique amongst fast-food based devotions.

Some manage their longings by surfing the Del Taco website, enlarging the pictures of tacos and dreaming of better times. Others are satiated by a portrait of Dan the Del Taco Guy over their beds, lulling them into gentle burrito-filled slumber.

My Del Taco verve cannot be sated by these mediocre substitutes. Several times the urge for cheap and delicious quasi-Mexican food has led my roommate and I to a late night road trip to Ventura. To satisfy our cravings