No single person clearly “invented” Taco Tuesday, but we do know who popularized the name and who tried to own it legally.

Quick Scoop

  • The basic idea of cheap tacos on a Tuesday shows up in U.S. newspaper ads as early as the 1930s, often just described as taco specials on Tuesdays rather than “Taco Tuesday.”
  • The exact phrase “Taco Tuesday” appears in print by the early 1970s, including an ad for the Snow White Drive In in Rapid City, South Dakota in 1973, so the slogan was already circulating before any big chain claimed it.
  • In the early 1980s, a manager at a Taco John’s franchise in Cheyenne, Wyoming launched a “Taco Twosday” promo—two tacos for 99 cents on Tuesdays—to boost slow-weekday sales; the catchy name evolved into “Taco Tuesday.”
  • Taco John’s then trademarked “Taco Tuesday” in 1989 and loudly promoted the idea that they “started” it, even though evidence shows others used the phrase earlier.
  • For decades, Taco John’s aggressively defended that trademark across most of the U.S., sending legal threats to smaller restaurants that advertised Taco Tuesday, while in New Jersey the mark was separately held by Gregory’s Restaurant & Bar.

So who really “invented” Taco Tuesday?

If you mean the tradition of eating tacos on Tuesday:

  • That grew organically through mid‑20th‑century restaurant promos and local deals, not from a single inventor.

If you mean the phrase “Taco Tuesday”:

  • Earliest documented uses point to small restaurants (like Snow White Drive In in South Dakota) and local ads in the 1970s, so credit is scattered and murky.
  • Taco John’s most clearly commercialized and legally branded the phrase nationwide in the 1980s, but they did not literally invent it from scratch.

In other words: Taco Tuesday is less a eureka moment from one genius, and more a slow-cooked mix of local promos, catchy alliteration, and one ambitious fast‑food chain that tried to make it their own.

Bottom note: Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.