Taco Bell viral vigil joke may become reality Sunday night

What do you do when your favorite Montgomery fast food restaurant burns down?

A candlelight vigil, of course.

That’s apparently what’s going to happen Sunday night in remembrance of the Zelda Road Taco Bell that caught fire and collapsed early Wednesday morning. However, the vigil itself won’t be at the actual Taco Bell site.

“It’s an active fire and crime scene,” said Katie James, who created a Facebook event asking people to come out Sunday night at 7 p.m. It’s a BYOC event - bring your own candles - that's now across the street.

The event sparked a lot of comments online:

“They can burn down our Taco Bell, but they can’t burn down our spirit!” - Linsday Avant.

“I just need a hug!” - Stephen Skarecky.

“This is going to be the next Woodstock!” - Brooke Thorington.

“Should have been on the 23rd so it could have been on taco Tuesday…” - Travis Stocklett.

At first, James cancelled the event when she learned they couldn’t gather on the Taco Bell site. She said she brought it back due to public demand and that it’s now going to take place across the street. She said there are going to be some special music guests and others attending, but the Montgomery Advertiser hasn’t been able to confirm that independently.

“This was just a joke,” said James. A joke that caught the public’s eye, and is now an actual event. And it wasn’t even her idea. That honor actually belongs to her roommate, Russell Dowis.

“He works long shifts, sometimes 14 hours a day. His go-to foods are McDonalds and Taco Bell. He’s a fast food guy,” said James. “I came home and said, ‘Russell, what’s wrong?’ He was like, ‘Man, the Taco Bell on Zelda burned down.’ I was like, ‘What?’ and he was like ‘Yeah!’ And I said, ‘We should hold a memorial for it.’ He said, ‘Oh my gosh, we should do a candlelight vigil.’ And then he moved on about his life, and didn’t think nothing about it. I, in about 10 minutes after that conversation, made a Facebook event, and titled it “Candle light vigil for Taco Bell.”

At the time, she had no idea people would start rallying behind it. Her original post came close to 500 people confirmed, and thousands interested in attending.

She said the thing that really kicked it off with the public was a viral Facebook photo by Alec Boulware, which shows Boulware on his knees, hands raised in the air in anguish, in front of the burned down Taco Bell.

“Alec is actually a really good friend of mine. He said he was going, and shared the event,” said James. “His picture went viral, and that’s where it spiraled.”

She thinks it was a good thing that this happened, because it brought people together and made everybody laugh. "It just gave people something to talk about other than all the negativity that’s going on right now," James said.

Ironically, she’s spurred a vigil movement for a restaurant she hasn’t eaten at in more than six months.

“I’m actually a bodybuilder. I cannot eat Taco Bell,” said James, who is also a personal trainer and a technician at Goodwin Animal Hospital in Montgomery. "I haven’t eaten Taco Bell in a long time."

So do they have to have permission to use the new across-the-street site on Sunday?

“I have no idea,” she said. “I have no idea how any of this works. It was a joke. I’m planning on going, so if we go and police tell us to leave, I’m going to leave. I’m going to listen to law enforcement."

Learn more, and join the online fun, on the vigil's new Facebook event page: www.facebook.com/events/170423290396948/