La Bamba’s at 11:49 pm!
Speaking of Bamba, it was such a sensation when it opened. $2.25 a burrito made me a bit shocked, used to 49 cents or whatever Taco Bell was, having had no exposure to the "big burrito concept", but once you had one we were all hooked.
Back then, out of state students were so unusual that UIUC had a Freshman orientation trip for out of state students, 3-4 days in the dorms with other out of state students knocking around campus doing whatever activities. I think we had like 12 of us. My roommate from that trip was a guy named Talbot Masten.
So Talbot gets to his senior year and decides to drop out of UIUC and invest in La Bamba. Provided a bunch of capital that seeded the new franchises, focusing on other college towns, Purdue, MSU, etc... I was visiting my sister at Purdue and we went to La Bamba and there was that dude, behind the grill making burritos. I think they eventually had a falling out, not sure the original brothers were too keen on the gringo - so he now owns a burrito joint in Nashville where he grew up.
All sorts of weird shit in the backstory of that place, at some point some guys kidnapped one of the brothers and held him for ransom.
Glad the place lives on, one of the original brothers still runs the place in Champaign, I was chatting with him about the old days with the restaurant in Skylight.
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