Fine Be That Way

Fort Worth takes a pass on 2 hip Dallas restaurant concepts

If this brunch sparks your appetite, you'll need to drive to Dallas to get it. So sorry.

Courtesy photo

Two Dallas restaurant concepts that were spun off with branches in Fort Worth — one serving Mexican food and the other, coffee — have closed.

TorTaco, the Mexican restaurant focused on tortas, tacos, bowls, and mezcal, opened a location in Fort Worth's West Seventh District in October 2016, and closed on January 22. TorTaco was a member of the Firebird Restaurant Group, which also owns El Fenix and Meso Maya.

A representative for the company released a statement saying that the business at that location just wasn't good enough.

"After nearly 17 months serving the Fort Worth community, we have made the difficult decision to close our TorTaco restaurant at 910 Currie St. effective January 22, 2018," the statement said. "Despite being voted the 'Best New Restaurant in Fort Worth' in 2017, among other accolades, the location has not met our expectations."

Judging by comments online, one of the restaurant's biggest problems was parking. West 7th recently clamped down on parking in the area and is proactively towing those who don't go to a designated business.

TorTaco was the 2017 winner in CultureMap's Tastemaker awards, in the "best new restaurant" category. You'd think that would be enough to keep any restaurant a-flourishing, so that parking situation must really be bad.

The original TorTaco in downtown Dallas remains open, where it will continue to serve its distinctive array of tortas, tacos, and mezcal. Meanwhile, they're seeking other sites around DFW for future TorTaco locations.

Further east, Mudsmith, located at 817 Matisse Dr. in the So7 development, closed on January 15. This was the second location of the original Mudsmith on Greenville Avenue, which bar/restaurant owner Brooke Humphries opened in August 2016. There is also a location of her Barcadia in the same complex.

Mudsmith took over the former Love Shack space, which would seem not to bode well for its prospects; if Tim Love can't make it happen in a location, maybe nobody can. Coffee might have seemed a good idea, with all of the apartments on-site needing morning coffee.

"There just wasn't enough business," said a staffer at the Dallas location — and yet the Starbucks across the street is almost always packed. Do residents of mixed-use developments grasp the idea that you should ideally support the business in your building? Maybe not so much.

The Dallas Mudsmith is "doing great," the staffer says, and Humphries is opening another Mudsmith in Dallas' Centrum Building in the spring.

closings

Pizza News

Yonx Pizza seduces north Dallas suburbs with New York-style pies

Yonx

Yonx Pizza, by the slice.

A pizzeria with a dedicated following has debuted in Melissa: Yonx Pizza Bar & Co., an indie spot that does New York-style pizzas as well as pizza by the slice, has opened a location at 1521 McKinney St. #700 — an address that had pizza history as it was home for nearly a decade to a Palio's Pizza, which closed in 2025.

Yonx is from Robert Hede, a restaurant veteran who was previously involved with the Village Burger Bar chain, where he was a partner. He switched from burgers to pizza in 2022 when he connected with NY Pizza and Pints, a small local pizzeria chain, opening a location in Wylie at 1125 FM 544 #800. After two years, he broke off from the chain to found Yonx at the same address.

Yonx does the kind of New York-style thin-crust pizza that Dallas-Fort Worth loves, in a standard 14-inch, as well as a massive 24-inch "Kong" size. They also do slices, which can be ordered as a lunch with a Caesar salad for $9.99.

Varieties include familiar favorites like pepperoni, as well as slightly gourmet options with New York-inspired names such as:

Balsamic on Bleeker St., with garlic sauce, mushrooms, shaved ribeye, mozzarella cheese, arugula, and balsamic drizzle
Bronx Bomb, with Sicilian marinara, mozzarella, meatballs, mushrooms, and ricotta cheese
Brooklyn, basically a meat-lovers with Sicilian marinara, mozzarella, sliced ham, chopped meatball, beef, & pepperoni
Greenwich Garden, a vegetarian with Sicilian marinara, mozzarella, red & green bell peppers, white onions, mushrooms, spinach, & black olives

Prices range from $16 for a 14-inch cheese pizza to $46 for a NY Giant Supreme Soho with Sicilian marinara, mozzarella, pepperoni, sausage, beef, red & green bell peppers, white onions, sliced mushrooms, & black olives.

Yonx Pizza soup in a bread bowl.Photo courtesy of Yonx

There are also sandwiches on house-made toasted focaccia such as the Italian tower with melted provolone cheese, sliced ham, salami, lettuce, red onion, pepperoncinis, & sundried tomato aioli.

Appetizers include comforting soups served in a bread bowl including tomato basil and jalapeno cream soup with charred jalapenos. Plus wings, garlic knots, and "Brooklyn Ballers" — their signature meatballs in marinara, made in-house. topped with whipped ricotta and Parmesan, served with pesto and focaccia ends.

A full bar features frozen margaritas and frozen mojitos made with agave gold tequila. The best day to order those is "Frozen Fridays" from 11 am-10:30 pm when the blueberry mojitos are $6 and the margaritas are $5.

The Melissa location opened in January, with the same menu as the Wylie original, and has been met with an unprecedented wave of positive reviews on Facebook: one comment after another raving over how great the pizza is, and what a godsend it is — positive reviews that began to stack up even before the place had officially opened, the likes of which have been rarely seen.

This location boasts almost double the size of the original in Wylie, with a covered patio where they'll host live music on the weekends outside.

Hede, who has been hands-on at the Melissa location since it opened, says he's all-in on these northernmost suburbs of Dallas.

"I like this area — I feel like all the growth is heading out in this direction, there's just a lot of activity up here," he says.

pizza openings