Growth continues to be the name of the game for Border Foods. We recently celebrated the grand opening of our Taco Bell restaurant at Clyde Park Ave in Wyoming, MI! This location marks store No. 4 for Border Foods in the area.

This newest restaurant is located near the intersection of Clyde Park Avenue and 54^th Street, just off the extremely busy U.S. 131. Most notably, the area is also home to a large UPS processing facility, Craig’s Cruisers Family Fun Center, Spectrum Entertainment Complex (with bowling, golf simulators and an arcade), and large shopping attractions, offering a tremendous opportunity for us to attract hungry shoppers. We’re happy to provide quality food fast!

Restaurant General Manager (RGM) Bryce Jones has been in the food service business for 13 years and started his career with Border Foods in the fall of 2023. Of the opportunity, Bryce says, “I’m excited to be a part of a company that has a great set of core values to operate around.”

Bryce has the support of two assistant managers, Aimee Lyons and Byron Morris; two Shift Leads, Kahdejah Burns and Ka’Breanna Neal; and a staff of 32.

I am excited to build an awesome culture, and demonstrate what it means to have pride in your work ethic each and every shift.

Bryce Jones, RGM

Area Coach (AC) Amanda Schlee has worked tirelessly to support the onboarding of our new Clyde Park team. Thank you so much, Amanda, for the incredible hard work and your positivity in getting this restaurant opened! As always, we could not execute this new addition without the teamwork from our supporting RGM, Tracy Broton, and our corporate office. 

If you want to work for a company that supports team members and celebrates winning together, consider joining Border Foods today!

An Above Restaurant Leader (ARL) meeting recently welcomed every ARL from the entire company for a few days of growth, training and learning, where we spent time focusing on an exciting new offering planned for 2024: Heartstyles!

Heartstyles is a leadership development program designed to give Border Foods team members the tools to become the best versions of themselves, lead authentically, and build a workplace culture that unlocks team member potential and delivers strong results.

The Heartstyles philosophy of giving individuals and teams the ability to create positive outcomes for themselves and others really resonated with Border Foods’ mission to live our core values. Like “excellence,” which we define as taking initiative, embracing challenges and working to exceed expectations while striving to realize opportunities for continuous improvement.

Heartstyles is really about personal development.

Sharla Hennek, VP of Human Resources 

Taco Bell Corporate recently invited us to take part in a “train the trainer” class. As a result, five Border Foods HR team members and one Operations leader became certified to facilitate and teach the Heartstyles class at Border Foods!

The Soft Launch

To give these leaders the opportunity to see the benefits of their training, we began small with pilot classes for our HR team and Region Coaches. The next phase is to facilitate a class for the rest of the ARLs, Area Coaches and some ACs in training. Our goal is to open up Heartstyles to our Restaurant General Managers (RGMs) in 2024.

Aligning with our core value of accountability, Border Foods is willing to take responsibility for our actions and their impact on performance outcomes, which is where this new leadership training resource comes in!

“By influencing and helping our leaders be more effective in engaging with the team that they support within the restaurants, it’s going to help drive interactions with the guests,” Sharla shares.

Stay tuned for more on this amazing new initiative! And if you want to work for a company that’s dedicated to your personal growth, consider applying to join our team today!

You can’t stop a good thing! And we think bringing more Taco Bells to taco-lovin’ Minnesota is a delectable idea! 

One of our newest locations is in St. Paul suburb White Bear Lake at 4600 Centerville Road. It opened in early October 2023 and has been a great addition to our Twin Cities metro operations.

Management of the new White Bear Lake Taco Bell includes Region Coach Nathan Besler, Area Coach Brittany Siebenaler and Restaurant General Manager (RGM) Jerry Vang, who is new to the Border Foods family. Jerry is supported by Assistant Manager Meranda Ards and Shift Leader Katrina Bennick.

About RGM Jerry

Jerry joined us in January 2023 after having worked for a family-owned restaurant. He trained at our Pheasant Ridge Taco Bell in Blaine, MN and then transitioned to Robert Street in Saint Paul. He was specifically hired by Brittany to lead this new location — her first new build. Brittany worked diligently to prepare and develop Jerry for this career opportunity. 

We are proud of Brittany’s dedication to proper training and development for our newest location.

Jerry and the entire White Bear Lake team spent a lot of time training at the Oakdale Taco Bell. For this, we are incredibly grateful for RGM Nathaniel Kukura’s time and attention. We couldn’t have done this without the love and support from his entire team.

The White Bear Lake Taco Bell currently has a staff of 14 team members, however, we’re looking for more people! After all, Jerry aims to staff, train and develop a team that is one to be proud of! So don’t wait, check out our job openings today.

What’s up at Border Foods? Last year, “up” was defined by Defy taking Taco Bell up a story! 

We’re concluding another blissfully busy year of más operations in 10 states. Check out the year’s most exciting highlights:

Read more about this year’s happenings below and remember, updates are frequently posted on our social channels Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and TikTok!

New COO

Formerly Director of Operations, Border Foods’ own Vince Bosscher stepped confidently into the role of Chief Operating Officer (COO) to propel us into the future. It wasn’t easy saying farewell to our good friend and leader Jeff Williams after nearly 30 years together (his retirement announcement was one of our top read blog posts for the year)!

Border, the “Bell” & Bikes

A handful of Border Foods Taco Bell restaurants played host to a hungry group of cyclists as they rode through the Twin Cities. 

New to Nebraska

We opened our first Taco Bell in Nebraska! Border Foods now happily operates in 10 states.

Living Legacy

The legacy of our late leader Carol Williams lives on in a new way with the new name of Taco Bell’s POS system. Border Foods won the system’s naming rights via a silent auction and let Carol’s middle name inspire “Annspire”!

Reward & Recognition

An annual highlight, our “Best of the Best” reward trip to Playa del Carmen did not disappoint. We were pleased to treat 80 of our finest (and their guests) to a tropical escape.

Savoring Scholarships

Border Foods hosted its first Swinging for Scholarships golf fundraiser, an event we plan to make annual. Our inaugural golf event brought in $120,000 for Border’s in-house scholarship programs. In addition, we celebrated the divvying out of $125,000 in Taco Bell Foundation Live Más Scholarships to 12 of our student employees.

New & Notable

As promised, there’s no slowdown in sight! We enjoyed many restaurant openings in 2023, most notably:

• Duluth, MN
• Billings, MT
• Snelling, MN (this was a long time waiting!)
• Burlingame, MI (back in business after fire damage!)

Thriving at 30+ Years

We kicked off a new series on our blog that features folks like Brian Davies who have reached 30-plus years of service with Border Foods and/or Taco Bell. Psssst, Juli Sargent hit 41 years!

Family Fun Events

It never gets old! We had plenty of fun in the sun this summer with our managers and their families, bouncing around from state to state. See it for yourself here.

Nifty Nearly Fifty

Forty-seven of our Taco Bells were named Signature Restaurants in 2023, a best-in-class designation we’re proud of every day!

Social Status

We like being social. Both our Instagram and Facebook accounts welcomed 131 new followers in 2023! And it looks like we got your attention with this Insta $100 giveaway (344 comments, engagement of 531) and on Facebook, people news on Tamara and new COO Vince brought the most crowd engagement.