New Fort Worth Mexican breakfast cafe, ‘tropical’ pub bringing new life to Riverside
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Race Street is lined with new restaurants. Again.
These will be keepers.
Tesoro Mexican, a dazzling little breakfast-and-lunch chilaquiles cafe, and the new Tropic Lady pub and patio, a Race Street version of the southside Bearded Lady, both will draw customers from across Fort Worth.
Both also have awkward, quirky counter service.
Don’t let that stop you from giving them a try.
Tesoro Mexican, 2919 Race St., and Tropic Lady, 2719 Race St., join another new restaurant, KingYO Sushi and Ramen House, replacing other spots that struggled from the slow growth in the Riverside Arts District.
For nearly a decade, Race Street has been the Next Big Thing.
It has location — 2 miles and a 5-minute drive from downtown, near both Interstate 35W and the Airport Freeway — and charm — blocks of 1940s and 1950s storefronts like a small Texas town.
But it didn’t have people, at least until several new apartment complexes went up.
At Tesoro Mexican, big crowds for breakfast and lunch
Tesoro Mexican opened six months ago. The Camarillo family’s restaurant quickly became the first Riverside Arts District restaurant with long lines and up an hour’s wait for menudo, chilaquiles, chicken tamales or cafe de olla.
Tesoro looks and smells like a bright streetside cafe in Zacatecas. The sweet smell of cafe de olla — coffee with cinnamon and sugar — wafts through the tiny dining room and order counter.
The place to sit is the back patio, lined with papel picado. On a sunny day, with a platter of chilaquiles verdes or the airy-light tamales, if feels a world away from Riverside.
Maybe you noticed there was no mention of enchiladas, tacos or chips and hot sauce. Tesoro doesn’t do all that.
The menu is short and simple: red, green or combo chilaquiles (artfully presented), thick pancakes (with or without chocolate and strawberry syrups), chicken tamales, menudo, fajitas, a breakfast burrito, huevos con chorizo or bacon-and-egg breakfast burgers.
The restaurant is so small that the host stand is on the front sidewalk. Check in and give a phone number, and they’ll text you when there’s room.
The next step is to line up and order everything at the counter, extending the wait and making weekend brunch something of an endurance test. Go on a weekday, or early or late on weekends.
Tesoro opens at 8:30 a.m. Wednesdays through Sundays and closes at 3 p.m.; 682-250-3256, but they’re busy.
Tropic Lady: burgers, nachos and lots of pineapple
Tropic Lady is new from the owners of the Bearded Lady, a 10-year-old South Main Village pub known for beers but also for its “L.U.S.T” poblano-gouda cheeseburger, featured on a Texas Monthly cover.
Tropic Lady takes the Bearded Lady’s casual vibe to the beach. The colors are tropical pink and aqua, and there’s a wraparound patio with a laid-back feel.
Tropic Lady has its own signature burger: a honey-habanero bacon-blue cheese burger with grilled pineapple. It’s on the sweet Hawaiian bun that has become familiar from other burger restaurants.
The black bean nachos come with mango pico de gallo and fresh jalapenos. The menu also includes blackened shrimp on tacos or a salad, smashburgers, a grilled-pineapple jalapeno-sausage sandwich and very good pea- or soy-based burgers and dogs.
So far, Tropic Lady is a counter-service restaurant. You have to order everything at the bar, meaning you either have to order everything at once or go back over and over again, even for more water.
Tropic Lady will open for lunch and dinner daily, and late on weekends; 817-349-8034, tropicladyfw.com.
