Here’s a peek inside that new Mexican food restaurant in Fort Worth near the zoo
Maria’s Mexican Kitchen will open in May, but the first few days will be wild.
In one of the more daunting grand-opening challenges for a Fort Worth restaurant, Felipe Armenta’s new South University Drive restaurant will welcome its first customers:
▪ The week of Cinco de Mayo,
▪ Days before Mother’s Day,
▪ The same month as the Charles Schwab Challenge pro golf tournament next door at Colonial Country Club,
▪ In a landmark former steakhouse across from the busy Fort Worth Zoo.
In other words, even if Maria’s opens in May at 1712 S. University Drive, expect a wait.
It’s the much-anticipated tribute to his mother, the late San Angelo restaurateur Maria De Los Angeles Gil Armenta, combining her Armentas Cafe favorites from West Texas with traditional dishes from the family’s native San Miguel de Allende and Guanajuato.
If it’s as popular as Felipe Armenta’s other restaurants, customers may be parking and walking from elsewhere along the Trinity Trail. Armenta also owns The Tavern, Pacific Table and Press Cafe, and soon will open Towne Grill in Alliance Town Center.
Maria’s will serve the same jalapeno chicken enchiladas Veracruz from Armentas Cafe in San Angelo, for example, and the family’s same grilled tacos and chips and hot sauce.
But it also will serve braised short ribs, a San Miguel favorite, along with chicken in mole sauce and seafood dishes.
“It’s a little bit Tex-Mex and a little bit traditional,” Armenta said.
His family’s San Angelo restaurant is a beloved little cafe.
“We’ve been doing it 30 years out there,” he said: “Why change something good?”
Maria’s adds another Tex-Mex food option in the same neighborhood as old-time Pulido’s, one of Fort Worth’s legacy restaurants, and Houston-based Pappasito’s.
“But you get people who want a basic beef enchilada plate, and then you get people who want sea bass with roasted vegetables cooked in a banana leaf, and we can do it all,” Armenta said.
Maria’s colorful design is reminiscent of San Miguel, with a combination of pastels and geometrics.
“We want it to feel colorful but keep it classy,” he said.
The old, peaked Hoffbrau Steaks sign and tall windows out front give the facade a look reminiscent of a historic church. (That Hoffbrau location moved to Benbrook.)
Lanterns will give the restaurant a soft luminaria-like glow at night.
Most notable: The patio has been expanded to seat 75, including a new fountain level looking across at the river trail and zoo.
Armenta remembered the patio. When he was 16, his family took him to lunch there on a trip to the zoo.
Two decades later, it’s his newest restaurant.
He was already known for grill dishes and West Texas cooking from the Tavern, 2755 S. Hulen St. (It’ll get a remodeling soon, he said.)
Towne Grill will open within two months at 9365 Rain Lily Trail with a menu similar to the Tavern’s, adding fresh oysters and shrimp, he said.
Maria’s has a website and Facebook page so far: mariasmexicankitchen.com and facebook.com/mariasmexicantx.
This story was originally published April 14, 2021 at 5:45 AM.
