Two Tex-Mex restaurants reopened in downtown Fort Worth: One was offering a free lunch
Two downtown Fort Worth restaurants have reopened, bringing enchiladas, tacos and margaritas back to customers hungry for something new:
▪ Wild Salsa, 300 Throckmorton St., is now open for lunch and dinner Tuesdays through Saturdays. refreshed and remodeled after a four-year break.
▪ Tia’s on the Bluff, a family-owned restaurant in a quirky, sprawling 100-year-old home at 1301 E. Bluff St., has reopened after a year’s rest.
Dallas-based Wild Salsa is reopening its One City Place location — it’s near the Worthington Renaissance Fort Worth hotel — with a free lunch deal.
Through Aug. 10, the first 50 customers at 11 a.m. each day to say they’re “loco for lunch” got a free torta or taco lunch platter, Wild Salsa announced.
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If you didn’t try Wild Salsa the first time around, it’s a flashy, colorful restaurant and bar known for its barbacoa or chipotle shrimp street tacos and for Sonoran chicken enchiladas.
It’s a corporate cousin to the very good Chop House Burger next door, which stayed open, and also to the Wicked Butcher prime steakhouse.
“We felt like things were stabilizing [downtown] and it was the right move” to reopen, owner Nafees Alam said.
The restaurant has new patio furniture, new lighting and a new layout with a partition separating the cozier bar.
Don’t miss the complimentary mini-paletas at the door, either lime, strawberry or coconut. They’re perfect for the walk back to work, the hotel or the parking meter.
By the way, meter parking downtown is free after 6 p.m. weeknights and all day weekends. There’s plenty.
Tia’s on the Bluff: guisada, chicken in chili-blend mole
Tia’s on the Bluff is tough to find. It’s in the northeast corner of downtown a block north of East Belknap Street, near a brewery, a convenience store and a burger drive-in.
Thirty years ago, in the age of TV’s “Miami Vice,” the fortress-like house had a reputation as an impregnable hideout.
Now, Patsy Villarreal and her extended restaurant family welcome patrons for the family’s homestyle Tex-Mex.
This is nothing fancy. It’s just homemade enchiladas, tender, soft carne guisada in a peppery gravy, or melt-in-your-mouth pulled chicken in a special chili-blend mole sauce.
Tia’s plans to add enchilada or mole bowls, basically like a stacked dinner. Eventually, it will serve breakfast.
Tia’s on the Bluff is a place to get away from the soulless apartments and hotels nearby, a reminder of what the Rock Island neighborhood was like in days gone by.
For now, it’s open for dinner Thursdays and Fridays, all day Saturdays and Sundays; facebook.com/moretias.
This story was originally published August 6, 2024 at 5:30 AM.
