Meal StealsLos Angeles Lakers: every active food-deal partnership in LA
The Lakers food-deal ecosystem is anchored by the long-running Jack in the Box "We Want Tacos" trigger, which fires on a Lakers win when opponents score under 111 points.
Active partnerships
Sourced from each restaurant's official promotion page or the team's own announcements. The "verified" tag means a primary source exists (team press release, restaurant promo page, or an official social post). "Reported" means the deal mechanic is described in secondary press without a located primary source for that specific claim.
| Restaurant | Trigger | Redemption | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jack in the Boxreported | Lakers win and hold opponents under 111 points (any game) | Two free tacos with any drink purchase via the Jack App the day after the game. LA-area locations. Two redemption codes have been reported across different sources (LETSGOLAKERS in a 2024-11 Jack in the Box X post; LAKERS2TACOS in a 2024 sponsored TikTok); the currently active in-app code requires app-side verification before each season, so check the Jack App for the live code. | official source |
| DoorDash (NBA50)verified | Any NBA player scores 50+ points in a regular-season game, including any Lakers player | $5 off $15+ DashPass-member orders the day after via DoorDash app, code NBA50. League-wide promotion through the 2025-26 NBA regular season. | official source |
Currently active deals
Pulled from the live deals feed. This section only shows offers whose redemption window is still open right now; it is not a 14-day fire history. A persistent archive of past fires will land once the historical data source ships.
No currently active deals. Check back during the season; an archive of past fires will land once the historical data source ships.
Trigger frequency
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Jack in the Box trigger fire rate (2024-25 regular season, all games)23 of 82 games (28.0%) verified
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Jack in the Box trigger fire rate (2024-25 home games only)13 of 41 home games (31.7%) verified
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Jack in the Box trigger fire rate (2023-24 home games only)10 of 40 home games (25.0%) verified
The story
The Lakers ship the only LA sports food promotion that pre-dates social-media's reign and has survived into the app era. Verified facts: the Jack in the Box partnership has run for roughly 19 seasons, was reported to have scaled the threshold from 100 points to 111 points around the 2019-20 season to keep firing in a faster-paced NBA, expanded from arena coupons to in-app codes, and now leans on creator-tagged TikTok content as a primary marketing surface. The reported origin year (2006-07) traces to a 2009 sportsbiz blog post by Brian Gainor and a 2011 CNBC trade-press piece; no primary press release dating the launch has been recovered. Interpretive framing: the Lakers are LA's largest media-market team and Jack in the Box is headquartered in San Diego with deep Southern California density, so the deal sits at a rare intersection of national-brand legibility and local fan ritual. The verified trigger rate (25-32% of regular-season games depending on season and home gating) is the right shape for a notification-driven product: frequent enough that users build a habit, rare enough that an alert still feels earned. The "We Want Tacos" slogan is verifiably used by the team in official graphics on X starting in 2022, which is a stronger anchor than any folkloric chant claim. No invented lore is needed around this partnership; the chain of public posts going back to 2009 is itself the story. The DoorDash NBA50 deal is league-wide rather than Lakers-specific, but it has triggered for the Lakers (Austin Reaves dropped 51 in October 2025 against Sacramento).
Partnership timeline
Each entry is tagged with a confidence level. Verified entries trace to a primary source; reported entries trace to journalism or fan-press; could-not-verify entries are flagged openly rather than dropped silently.
- Jack in the Box and the Lakers launch the original "two free tacos" deal, reported at the time as a Lakers home win plus opponents under 100 points. Origin date is reported in a 2009 sportsbiz blog and a 2011 CNBC piece; no primary Lakers or Jack in the Box press release recovered. reported source
- Threshold reportedly raises from 100 to 111 points to keep firing in a higher-scoring NBA. Reported in a 2019-10 Franklin Avenue blog post; the team's first verifiable use of the "under 111" wording is a Lakers post on X dated 2020-08-06. reported source
- Lakers official "We Want Tacos" partnership graphic posted on X. Earliest verifiable use of the current public wording. verified source
- Jack in the Box X campaign references the redemption code LETSGOLAKERS. A separate 2024 sponsored TikTok showed LAKERS2TACOS; the currently live Jack App code has not been verified, so the active code requires app-side verification each season. reported source
- El Pollo Loco signs Lakers rookie Dalton Knecht to an athlete-endorsement deal. This is not a fan-facing food trigger and is not tracked in Meal Steals. verified source
- DoorDash NBA50 deal active for the 2025-26 regular season. League-wide, not Lakers-specific, but the Lakers triggered it on 2025-10-26 when Austin Reaves scored 51 against Sacramento. verified source
Sources
Primary sources
- https://x.com/Lakers/status/1500561860524843008
- https://x.com/JackBox/status/1856382449686569236
- https://about.doordash.com/en-us/news/doordash-renews-nba-wnba-partnership
Secondary sources
- https://www.cnbc.com/2011/02/28/stunt-of-the-week-jack-in-the-box-at-the-lakers-game.html
- https://www.foxla.com/news/food-promotions-when-lakers-win-during-the-2020-2021-regular-season
- https://www.landofbasketball.com/results_by_team/2024_2025_lakers.htm
- https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/46741338/austin-reaves-scores-career-high-51-points-lakers-win
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