Taco Bell Expands Live Más Café, Jobs Shift Toward Bellristas
Taco Bell has expanded its beverage forward Live Más Café concept beyond its initial Southern California test, rolling out storefronts built around handcrafted cold and coffee forward drinks and new frontline roles called Bellristas. The move matters for workers and franchise operators because it creates specialized drink prep responsibilities, altered ordering flows, and different peak staffing patterns that will require targeted hiring and training.
Taco Bell is broadening the footprint of Live Más Café, a store format centered on coffee forward and handcrafted cold beverages and staffed by employees known as Bellristas. The company has framed the expansion as part of a broader strategy to diversify store formats and capture growth in a fast expanding beverage category, noting high daily beverage volumes at early sites.
The Live Más Café model reorganizes front of house work. Bellristas take on specialized drink preparation tasks that differ from typical taco line duties, and stores use kiosk ordering workflows that change how orders move from customers to crew. Managers at these locations are adjusting schedules and roles to match different peak demand patterns, which can concentrate staffing during morning and late afternoon beverage peaks rather than the traditional lunch and dinner rushes familiar in legacy Taco Bell units.
For employees, the new format creates both new responsibilities and new training needs. Bellrista training emphasizes barista style techniques, beverage assembly and temperature control, and a sequence of prep steps not commonly required in standard units. Franchisees and operators planning to open or convert Live Más Café locations will need to recruit crew who can learn these skills or invest in training programs to upskill existing staff. That may affect hiring profiles, wage offers, and scheduling practices as operators balance beverage production roles with remaining food prep needs.
Operationally, the format also shifts customer service touch points. Kiosk centric ordering can reduce direct cashier work while increasing the need for coordinated hand off between kiosk order management and beverage assembly. Early site performance suggests beverages can drive higher per store transaction volume, which could translate into more stable front line hours for employees focused on drink service, but it also demands reliable throughput and quality control.
As Taco Bell continues to roll out Live Más Café, workers and franchise managers should anticipate more specialized job descriptions, dedicated training for Bellristas, and scheduling that reflects beverage led traffic patterns rather than a traditional taco centered cadence.
