Taco News

Upscale taqueria Taco Diner shutters 2 locations including Fort Worth

No tacos in Sundance Square today.

Courtesy photo

An upscale taqueria in Fort Worth's Sundance Square has closed: Taco Diner, which had been open at 156 W 4th St. for six years, closed the location on January 1, with a post on its website and Facebook page, announcing the sad closure.

"Thank you for dining with us at Taco Diner over the last six years," the post says. "We have made the very difficult decision to close our Sundance Square location and want to thank our loyal guests in the Fort Worth community for embracing our style of Mexico City street food."

"We have taken steps to ease the closure by finding opportunities for all managers and team members at neighboring restaurants within the M Crowd family and look forward to continued service and great memories in the years to come," the post says.

This was the chain's only remaining location in Fort Worth. The chain simultaneously closed its location in Las Colinas, with a similar message to its Las Colinas audience.

That leaves just two locations, both in Dallas: West Village and Lake Highlands.

It's a big decline from what was once a thriving chain with locations in Southlake, Addison, Dallas' Preston Center, and Southlake, Fort Worth's Waterside, Plano's Shops at Legacy, Richardson's Cityline complex, and beyond.

Taco Diner, which describes itself as a "celebration of the authentic taco stands of Mexico City and the classic American neighborhood diner," was created in 1999 by restaurateur Mico Rodriguez as a casual younger sibling to the Mi Cocina chain, which he also co-founded.

When it debuted in Dallas' West Village, it was a fresh and lively concept that drew big crowds for its craft margaritas and soft tacos - far ahead of the ensuing glorification of tacos that exists today, and a glorification that also probably helped set the stage for its decline.

In its latter years, it broadened its menu to include crowd-pleasing items like burgers and Mi Cocina's signature margarita, the Mambo Taxi.

Its fortunes were not helped by Mico's departure from parent company M Crowd.

The chain closed down entirely in March after the onset of COVID-19, and the most recent three closures — Plano, Richardson, and Waterside — have all closed since the virus hit.

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Stephanie Allmon-Merry contributed to this story.

Chef News

Fort Worth's Will Rogers Memorial Center welcomes bright new chef

FortWorthtx.gov

Will Rogers Memorial Center

There's a new chef in town: Waylon Cornelius, named executive chef of catering and concessions for Craft Culinary Concepts, the food and beverage provider at Will Rogers Memorial Center.

Will Rogers Memorial Center is the 120-acre entertainment complex anchoring Fort Worth’s Cultural District, owned and operated by the City of Fort Worth. Cornelius will oversee menus for trade shows and other events at the center which bring in more than 2 million visitors a year.

Craft Culinary Concepts is headquartered in Glendale, Arizona, and manages food and beverage programs for entertainment, sports and cultural facilities.

Chef Waylon Corneliusfortworthtx.gov

According to a release, Cornelius joined the team this summer and is already shifting the expectations of guests from a typical “BBQ and beans” menu to a bill of fare satisfying every kind of palate.

“We always have fajitas ready to go, but we also make a beautiful Beef Wellington or baked salmon with a pink salt crust,” Cornelius says in a statement.

For consumer trade shows, Craft and its partners Caribou and Taco Heads offer more choices for the thousands of guests who attend events at WRMC annually.

“Some of our equestrian guests are away from home and here for several days, and they need more than popcorn and hot dogs,” Cornelius says. “Our concessions offer biscuits and gravy, burritos made in-house, strawberry salad, fruit and yogurt cups.”

A native of Mansfield, Cornelius grew up helping in a farm-to-table kitchen. He was raised on a farm with his mother, grandmother, and grandfather -- a Vietnam veteran who enjoyed vegetable gardens and raising hogs and chickens. He studied computer science after high school and holds an associate's degree in Cultural Resource Management and Policy Analysis from Tarrant County College.

He's a 2003 graduate of AIMS Academy of Culinary Arts in Dallas where he was mentored by a number of great chefs. While training as assistant executive sous chef at the AAA four-diamond Grand Hyatt DFW, he worked with Executive Chef Sutti Sripolpa, chef Eric Dreyer (who went on to be Oprah Winfrey’s personal chef), and Chef Jean-Claude Plihon, under whom he honed his French cooking skills.

As executive sous chef at the opening of Perry’s Steakhouse and Grille in Southlake, Cornelius gained expertise with volume. While at HG Sply Co., he learned about gluten-free items and other food allergies.

HG Sply is also where he crossed paths with Chef James R. Schell III, Craft’s general manager at WRMC, who recruited Cornelius to the complex.

"James said he needed someone who can hit moving targets, push the culinary team to be more avant-garde and use locally sourced, seasonal ingredients, so here I am," Cornelius says. "Culinary is a small world."

“I want people to say, ‘When we were in Fort Worth, you won’t believe what we got at Will Rogers!’” Schell says. “Even the celebrities who perform [in the auditorium] are surprised. When Chicago played here recently and we served dinner backstage, they said they felt treated like the Rolling Stones.”

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