Rogelio Cortez was just a food truck guy, parked in a usual spot along East Rosedale Street near U.S. 287 in his native Poly neighborhood when he got a lead on a modern brick-and-mortar site at the intersection.
The lead came from the property owner, state Rep. Ramon Romero, who was closing his own restaurant at the intersection, needed a tenant and had seen the daily traffic jams caused by motorists trying to stop at Cortez’s birria taco truck 200 feet away.
“I didn’t even advertise it,” Romero, who also grew up in Poly and represents the area in the Texas Legislature, says. “I called Rogelio and said, ‘You need to do this. You’re from Poly, people love you. You’re going to regret it if I get somebody else in.’ I gave him as low a lease as I could to get him in. Man, was I ever right.”
Long story short — the move apparently paid off, as the Michelin Guide, in its first round of identifying Texas restaurants it feels its well-heeled international travelers should visit, designated Cortez’s Birrieria y Taqueria Cortez a “recommended” restaurant Nov. 11.
Problem was, things have been so busy for Cortez, he wasn’t paying attention when Michelin tried to notify him of the honor and didn’t make the Houston dinner where the award was announced.
“We laughed our asses off,” says Romero, who called to congratulate Cortez when word broke — only to find him at home. “I’m so proud of him.”
The week has been a whirlwind. The restaurant is typically closed Mondays and Tuesdays, with Mondays reserved for “family time” and Tuesdays the beginning of the week’s prep.
Cortez, 29, says he figured the restaurant had lost the Michelin opportunity by not responding, so he went about his business Monday. His mother, however, lit up a row of candles in the images of the saints and prayed and cried through the announcement, Cortez says.
Tuesday and Wednesday were consumed by media interviews. Shortly after Wednesday’s 9 a.m. opening, Romero dropped by.
And the Report’s interview was briefly delayed by the delivery of congratulatory roses from the Don Artemio Mexican Heritage restaurant, widely viewed in Fort Worth dining circles as a strong contender for the Michelin list.
“We can’t wait to celebrate with you,” Don Artemio’s card read.
Cortez and his family — he, four siblings, their spouses, both parents and other relatives work in the restaurant, which has 50 employees — are still trying to absorb being one of only four Tarrant County restaurants recognized among the total 117 Texas Michelin honorees announced Monday.
The family — Cortez’s father, also named Rogelio, emigrated from Jalisco, Mexico, 40 years ago — posted “The American Dream is alive!” on the restaurant’s social media shortly after the announcement.
“The more I think of it, the more I can’t believe it,” the younger Cortez said, sitting on the restaurant’s covered deck, 40 feet above Sycamore Creek. “I didn’t think a place like this would get recognized. The type of food we prepare is really ‘poor’ food.”
Birria is a style of cooking, with a sauce served on protein such as beef or goat. Birrieria’s version is all-beef, slow-cooked in spices, shredded and served with a rich sauce, garnished with diced onions, cilantro and lime slices, and served in various forms, such as the “quesatacos” and a pizza. The restaurant is open for breakfast (birria is a morning staple), lunch and dinner five days a week, in addition to the complementary hours at the food truck.
Cortez’s mother, Patricia, began cooking menudo and birria several years ago at her Poly home and still maintains the restaurant’s recipes. That led to the food truck in February 2020 and the brick-and-mortar in October 2021. Her son, who graduated from Polytechnic High School and had been working in commercial roofing, left that work after an injury and took the helm of the food business.
The menu’s simplicity helped achieve consistency, the bane of many restaurants.
“It’s just one thing we serve,” says Cortez, who runs the operation. Simplicity also helped the operation get through COVID. “It was a blessing in disguise,” Cortez says.
Running only the food truck, still in operation next to a tire shop, the family built a drive-through operation and demand took off. Customers often waited for hours in the nearby Sycamore Community Park before getting a text to come across the street and pick up their food. “They’d pull up to the food truck already drunk,” Cortez says. “Everything was closed.”
The family helped clean toilets and other dumped debris out of Sycamore Creek, hauling items up the banks by rope. The restaurant, which has gained the attention of Texas Monthly foodies, is a piece of the yearslong renewal of East Rosedale Street through Poly, spurred by Texas Wesleyan University and the city of Fort Worth.
“Just a Poly kid doing great things for Poly,” Romero said of Cortez.
Where restaurant patrons might once have viewed the corridor as worn and unsafe, “there’s more traffic going on through here,” Cortez said. “People aren’t too nervous about it anymore.”
The Michelin recognition “should be a pride for the whole community, just bringing light to this side of town,” Cortez’s father said.
Is the restaurant ready for a boost in business and other demands that happen with Michelin exposure?
“We think we’re prepared for it,” Cortez said. “Only God knows.”
During his conversation with Romero, Cortez wondered what the Michelin recognition means.
“I told him for the rest of his life, it means people are going to listen to what you say,” Romero says.
Scott Nishimura is a senior editor for the Documenters program at the Fort Worth Report. Reach him at scott.nishimura@fortworthreport.org.
This article first appeared on Fort Worth Report and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.