Remember The '90s Fast Food Fajita Wraps? The Last One Disappeared In 2025

At the advent of the 1990s diet culture, fast food companies were looking for new ways to market their food to people concerned with calorie counting. Fajita wraps were marketed as a low-calorie alternative to burgers and fries. The fajita wrap was a food that most people thought was healthy, as it featured grilled rather than breaded and fried meat, and a low-calorie tortilla instead of a thick bun. Most consisted of strips of steak or chicken on a flour tortilla stuffed with lettuce, diced tomatoes, cheese, and a mayonnaise-based sauce.

You could find fajita wraps at Jack in the Box, McDonald's, and Taco Bell. But by the mid-to-late '90s, most chains had removed them from menus. That is, except for Jack in the Box, the first restaurant to introduce a fast food fajita wrap, and the pioneer of the movement. Jack in the Box's Chicken Fajita Pita was introduced in 1988 and featured strips of chicken in a pita pocket with grilled onions, tomatoes, lettuce, and cheese. It was popular because it was only 350 calories, so people could enjoy a relatively light fast food delight.

And as most chains switched course and began focusing on creating more elaborate sandwiches, Jack in the Box stayed true to its retro wrap ... until now. As of February 2025, Jack has finally removed the Chicken Fajita Pita from its menu. This move comes three years after Jack in the Box sold nearly half of its Del Taco locations. Fans of the wrap say they are disappointed, with some even signing a petition on Change.org to bring the menu item back.

While you might think of a fajita as a Tex-Mex invention, the dish actually has its roots in 1930s cowboy culture, when vaqueros could only get a somewhat undesirable cut of meat known as strip steak. The meat was grilled and then wrapped in tortillas. In Austin, Texas, the manager of a meat market popularized the dish in 1969, opening the first known commercial fajita taco stand. Soon, restaurants throughout Texas were offering versions of the dish. By the early '70s, it could be found in Tex-Mex chains and Mexican restaurants throughout the South. 

By 1988, Jack in the Box had introduced a new spin on the fajita: Its Chicken Fajita Pita, which was made in a pita pocket rather than a tortilla. Taco Bell and McDonald's soon followed suit with their chicken fajitas, made on soft flour tortillas. The McDonald's fajita was later replaced by the McDonald's snack wrap, returning in 2025.

Unfortunately, for most of the chains that offered a version of a fajita wrap or pita wrap, the menu item just didn't sell very well. Perhaps because the fast food restaurants were competing with thousands of Mexican fast food and fast casual dining establishments across the country, which were doing it better. Now, with the discontinuation of Jack in the Box's Chicken Fajita Pita, the fast food fajita wrap era has come to a sad end.