Del Taco — Restaurant in Baker

From the memoir DESERT SOLILOQUY:

The town of Baker has many charms. It is the garden spot of the East Mojave, and thousands of tourists flock there every summer to bask in its beauty and culture. The opera house is full of beautiful women in dazzling dresses every weekend night, handsome tuxedoed men hanging onto their arms, as great plays like “Othello” and “Paint Your Wagon” premier, followed by rave reviews in the Hollywood press the next day.

Well, I lied. Baker sucks limes, but it’s better than no Baker at all. We stopped at a taco place, and I grabbed my water bottles and went to the water spigot that sticks out of the south wall: the only working, non-locked source of water I have ever been able to find in Baker without invading someone’s kitchen. I filled my eight one-liter bottles with clean water, and each one took mere second instead of the several minutes I was used to. I held a full bottle up to the sun.

“Good god!” I said. “I can actually see through it! There’s no dirt! There’s no bugs! And, IT WAS SO EASY!” It made me wish I had a plumbing system back at the cave, and a filtration system, and a purification system, and that ice cube maker I was constantly dreaming about. When I loaded the filled bottles into the Fiesta, my brother and I walked up to the taco shop’s door.

“Okay, then,” my brother said in a low, menacing, but loud voice. “We’ll do this, but remember: NOBODY leaves this place alive. No witnesses this time!” I looked around to see if anyone had heard. There was nobody around. We went in.

The people serving fast food inside knew us, and they knew what to expect.

“Six large orders of French fries, please! To go,” my brother said. The person at the counter didn’t blush. My brother forked over the cash, then stepped aside. I stepped up.

“I would like six orders of large French fries to go, please, and a small fountain drink: I’m on a diet.” My brother giggled.

“It’ll take a few minutes,” Counter Guy said, still without a blush. The woman at the drive-up window said “Howdy” at me, and asked me how the turquoise hunting was going. I fished into my front left pocket and pulled out a pale brown rock that had a zero-quality (worthless) streak of turquoise and I gave it to her. She has been working that drive-up service window for over ten years, and I wondered at how she has managed to not shotgun her brains out, while standing in a bathtub in some motel, from the angst and despair such a “career” must cause. She was pleased with the rock.

Our heavy bags of highly-salted deep-fried starch were ready. I got a cup of ice from the soda fountain, and we left.

Nobody died.

I entered the burrito store and was punched in the face with cool air. It felt strange to suddenly go from 108 degrees Fahrenheit (42.2 Celsius) to 66F (19C) in the time span of two heartbeats. The sweat on my face seemed to harden and then ice over in a patina of alkaline, calcium carbonate, and feldspar dust, bonded to my face with the greasy sweat my body produced from processing dehydrated refried beans and saltine crackers. I worked my jaw to alleviate the numbing chill from my cheeks. The smell of fried bovine and chicken flesh assaulted by...

Significant communication challenges. Ordered one snack taco and one fish taco, repeated the order for clarity as I worked fast food myself in the past, still got two snack tacos. My husband did not want tomatoes and I did, so there was a confusing conversation with the associate involving that.The associate kept saying, “no, no tomatoes,” when I was saying that I wanted tomatoes as an add on for my order. I did take at least get the tomatoes, yet that was after repetition and enunciation. I then order iced coffee, and expressly and clearly said cream and NO sweetener (after all, at this point, communication challenges were multiplying). I received it, took a sip, and am pretty sure that I immediately got diabetes and also cavities in every single one of my teeth. I returned to the counter and was told by the same person from whom I had ordered unsweetened coffee literally minutes before that it only comes sweetened. That information would have been helpful when I initially ordered. I’m not sure that I was told the truth about the coffee, yet if the only option is sicky icky, pancreas annihilatingly sweet, I cannot stress this enough: IF YOU VALUE YOUR HEALTH AT ALL (with the awareness that this is a fast food restaurant, of course), DO NOT ORDER THE ICED COFFEE. Your mileage may vary, yet I could not stand the intense, unnatural sweetness. My dentist and endocrinologist are calling, so I close...

Del Taco in Baker is a great place to stop if you are hungry, want to make a quick stop, and don't want to spend a lot of money.

Fast food stops can be iffy when it comes to service, food quality, value and cleanliness. I happy to say that we found the Del Taco in Baker to get top scores in all the above.

The staff there was very friendly. The tables, floors, windows, counters, soda bar, and restrooms were not just cleaned up, the were CLEAN.

The meals were prepared quickly after you ordered. Not just pulled off a tray under a heat lamp and all dried out, so the temperature was hot, and cooked perfectly. I gave 5 stars for the food, not because it was a michlin star restraunt, but because compared to other fast food stops, it was a pleasant surprise to receive food that looked like the pictures on the menu. So many other fast food stops I've visited have served up smashed buns, condiments and meat tossed on hap hazardly, with ketchup or mustard all over the wrapper and outside the bun.

So if you are looking for a great place to stop for a quick, inexpensive meal that is very clean, where the service is friendly and your meal is prepared and delivered fresh, hot, and tasty, visit Del Taco in Baker. They work hard to deserve...