Pink tacos hit the big time: Family cafe grows into full-size Fort Worth restaurant, bar
Cafecito, a taco stand that made its reputation for its pink-tinted tortillas and fresh, fiery sauces, will move to a Magnolia Avenue restaurant space with a bar, a patio and longer hours, owner Cinthya Duran said Friday.
Cafecito will take over the former Easy Monkey restaurant, 401 W. Magnolia Ave. The 99-year-old building, a former flower shop, is better known for its long run as Fixture Kitchen.
Cafecito is currently in a stand at 1229 Eighth Ave. after starting nearby as a food truck.
Duran said the restaurant has already outgrown that location.
“We’re so excited to stay in our beloved Near Southside,” she wrote by email.
Cafecito’s menu has steadily grown and now includes chilaquiles rojos with chipotle salsa, open-face sandwiches (molletes), Coahuila-style ham-and-cheese quesadillas sincronizadas and cold brew lattes.
Hospital workers discovered Cafecito first along with its “pink tacos” tinted with beet juice.
Back then, Cafecito was just a tiny taco truck open early mornings, serving simple breakfast egg-and-potato burritos and “pink tacos” on fresh-made tortillas, with powerful chile arbol or jalapeno-serrano sauces and cinnamon-spiced cafe de olla.
Originally, Cafecito sold only about 10 tacos a day.
“We were beginning to wonder,” Duran said in an earlier interview. “Somebody would come buy two tacos and leave, and then we’d see them walking back toward the truck and we’d say, ‘Oh, my gosh! Did we mess up?’ But they would come back and say, ‘I’d like two more of these tacos.’ “
The family’s roots are in Monclova, Coahuila, about 550 miles south of Fort Worth.
“I had a hard time finding authentic breakfast tacos like the ones we grew up eating at home,” Duran said.
“We did not expect people to love us as much as they have,” she said.
Cafecito is open from 6 a.m. daily except Sundays for breakfast and lunch; 682-376-9649, cafecitofw.com
