An old-time Tex-Mex favorite brings weekend breakfast to north Fort Worth suburbs
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- The Arizola family’s restaurant legacy dates to 1968; El Sombrero is an older building.
- Both El Sombrero and Arizola’s open at 8 a.m. on weekends to serve breakfast.
- Cheese or beef enchiladas are served weekends topped with two eggs over easy.
When El Sombrero Restaurant began, Saginaw was a small town and Mexican food meant enchiladas.
Nearly 60 years later, El Sombrero remains a classic old-time restaurant, almost like a little museum of Tex-Mex food on the edge of north Fort Worth suburb.
When the Arizola family opened their first restaurant in nearby Lake Worth, it was 1968. Frozen margaritas not only weren’t legal, they hadn’t been invented.
Fajitas wouldn’t come to North Texas for another 10 years. Enriqueta Arizola of South Texas built her reputation serving cheese or beef enchilada dinners.
The 1968 price: $1.05.
Now, the Arizola family has two restaurants: their original Arizola’s, now in its third location in Lake Worth, and El Sombrero, the family’s revival of an old Saginaw cafe where Arizola cooked in the 1960s.
El Sombrero is actually the older of the two restaurant locations. It looks like a country cafe you’d see in the Arizola family’s native southwest Texas.
A dim neon sombrero blinks from atop a faded coral-pink building at 316 S. Saginaw Blvd. (North Main Street), 1 mile north of Loop 820.
Inside, the decor is pink and teal green. A mural shows a Sonoran desert village with jackrabbits, adobe, tall saguaro cacti and an indigenous woman making pottery.
It all seems an incredibly long way from Saginaw’s polished new subdivisions, both in place and time.
But El Sombrero has something that transcends space and time:
Breakfast.
Both El Sombrero and Arizola’s open at 8 a.m. weekends to serve breakfasts with eggs, chilaquiles, pancakes and breakfast tacos.
The Arizola family was always known for enchiladas. Now, they’re an all-day special.
Both El Sombrero and Arizola’s even offer enchiladas for breakfast.
The morning platter of cheese or beef enchiladas ($12.50-$13.75) comes simmering in ranchero sauce, topped the old-fashioned way with two eggs over easy.
Ask for green chicken enchiladas with eggs.
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And note to make the same substitution at dinner, when the restaurant’s enchilada-heavy menu includes another unusual menu item: “chicken enchilada pie.”
It’s basically an enchilada casserole. Instead of being rolled, the enchiladas are stacked with slivers of tortilla, then topped with the familiar glob of cheese.
The dish ($13.50) is easily big enough for two to share.
Recommendation: Order it when green sauce and ask to skip the ranchero and “queso sauce,” which is more like a mild chili gravy.
And here’s another note: If you want traditional cheese enchiladas with Tex-Mex chili con carne, ask for it. Otherwise, they come in ranchero sauce.
The menu includes all the familiar Tex-Mex combinations of meat and tortillas.
Something else abour El Sombrero and Arizola’s is old-school: the price.
Large plates of beef or chicken fajitas are $14.50 on a Friday night special.
A senior menu offers an enchilada, quesadilla, nachos or arroz con pollo, a dish popularized in Fort Worth, for about $8.
Don’t expect everything on the menu to be great. The chips and hot sauce are mundane. Reviews on social media document a litany of complaints, beginning with the timeworn look.
But El Sombrero and Arizola’s are as much about tradition as food.
As one commenter wrote, it “reminds me of when I was a kid.”
El Sombrero and Arizola’s are both open for lunch and dinner Tuesdays through Fridays, and for breakfast through dinner weekends.
El Sombrero is also open for lunch and dinner Mondays; 817-232-2331, arizolasyelsombrero.com.
Arizola’s is at 6055 Lake Worth Blvd. (Texas 199), a quarter-mile east of Loop 820; 817-237-4117.
