Tinie’s brings Mexico City-style food, mezcal bar to Fort Worth’s South Main Street

For years, South Main Street has been a drinkers’ destination.

Now, it’s a dining destination.

The opening this week of Tinie’s, 113 S. Main St., rounds out the dining selection. The handsome Mexico City-style restaurant and upstairs mezcal bar is new from Taco Heads chef Christian Lehrmann.

The area now called “South Main Village” also includes chef Stefon Rishel’s excellent Wishbone & Flynt, and a half-dozen top-drawer stops serving barbecue, pizza, biscuits or coffee.

Tinie’s (say it like “teeny’s”) serves rotisserie chicken, roast pork in mole verde, a chimichurri steak and larger grill platters that two could share ($27-$57).

But Tinie’s also offers strikingly good small plates that could combine for a dinner.

The guacamole trio ($14) featured the house guacamole with serrano, a version with chipotle-bacon jam and a shrimp-and-red-onion guac.

Tamales and handmade empanadas ($4) highlight a menu that also includes chorizo-poblano queso, tuna tostadas and ceviche.

Lehrmann and Sarah Castillo of Taco Heads teamed up to open Tinie’s, with an upstairs cocktail lounge by Glen Keely of Thompson’s Book Store.

The mezcal bar, the Escondite (“hideout”), has a patio with a view of the downtown skyline.

Tinie’s is the first restaurant or bar as you cross into South Main Village from the Fort Worth Convention Center and the Trinity Metro T&P Station. It opens at 4 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays for dinner; 682-255-5425, tiniesfw.com.

Try the octopus. No, I’m not kidding

Two blocks south of Tinie’s, Wishbone & Flynt got off to a fast start with its popular cocktail lounge, the Amber Room.

But don’t overlook the restaurant up front.

On a visit last weekend, a table of jaded out-of-town guests rolled their eyes when Rishel bragged about the charred octopus ($14) with paprika and pearl onions.

It was every bit as good as promised. So was a platter of shrimp fra diavolo ($20), along with desserts that included a rich chocolate jar or a peanut-butter cheesecake.

Wishbone & Flynt is open weekdays and Saturdays for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and Sundays for Rishel’s popular brunch with chiles rellenos or tiramisu French toast; 334 Bryan Ave., 817-945-2433, wishboneandflynt.com.

▪ Elsewhere in South Main Village, look for Black Cat Pizza, 401 Bryan Ave.; Four Sisters Taste of Vietnam, 1001 S. Main St.; board-game cafe Game Theory Board Game Lounge, 804 S. Main St.; Hot Box Biscuit Club, 313 S. Main St.; old-school chicken-fried and Tex-Mex cafe Jesús BBQ, 810 S. Main St.; and Panther City BBQ, 201 E. Pennsylvania St. (formerly East Hattie Street).

There;s several more restaurants, coffee and ice cream shops and food trucks. It’s all a short walk or drive south of Vickery Boulevard near the T&P Station parking, or drive north from Rosedale Street.

This story was originally published March 11, 2020 at 5:45 AM.

Bud Kennedy’s Eats Beat

Fort Worth Star-Telegram

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Bud Kennedy is celebrating his 40th year writing about restaurants in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. He has written the “Eats Beat” dining column in print since 1985 and online since 1992 — that’s more than 3,000 columns about Texas cafes, barbecue, burgers and where to eat. Support my work with a digital subscription