‘We haven’t given up on the brand’

The Taco Diner closed on September 1, 2021 in the West Village of Dallas after 20 years of operation.

CEO Edgar Guevara announced at the end of July that Taco Diner’s sibling restaurant and the West Village neighbor, Mi Cocina, will also be closed. But Mi Cocina will be moving a few blocks south on McKinney Avenue, and Taco Diner won’t.

That leaves only one taco diner in Lake Highlands after five taco diners in North Texas closed between late 2019 and early 2021.

Lake Highlands restaurant, which opened in May 2018, will remain open, Guevara says. CultureMap first reported the closure of the Taco Diner in Uptown.

Guevara says the company is focused on Mi Cocina and that his team plans to devote more time to the Taco Diner brand in 2022 after two high-profile Mi Cocinas opened: in Klyde Warren Park and at the new Uptown Dallas address.

When Mi Cocina opens at Klyde Warren Park, restaurant group CEO Edgar Guevara says it will be one of the company's best-known addresses.

Taco Diner employees are offered jobs at the new Mi Cocinas nearby.

“We haven’t given up on the brand,” says Guevara of Taco Diner. However, a new strategy is needed. That starts with a menu change in the Lake Highlands restaurant within the next six weeks.

The Taco Diner has been open in the West Village of Dallas since July 1, 2001.(MICHAEL AINSWORTH)

“I think what happened to Taco Diner is that it went through several transformations during its life cycle,” says Guevara. He has been CEO for four years and many of those changes came before he arrived.

“We tried to fill in the gaps that had to change, one at a time – instead of stepping back and saying, ‘What is this concept and what do we want to do with it?’ ”

Taco Diner is a Mexico City-style taqueria. It also serves Mambo Taxis, the frozen margarita sangria swirl made famous by Mi Cocina. Taco Diner served sit-down tacos in Dallas before the taco takeover began. Back then, a 2001 Dallas Morning News article pointed out that Taco Diner was taking the humble taco and taking it to the extreme: this was a place where customers could get authentic tacos in a lovely new development in Dallas . They even took credit cards with them, the 2001 article says.

A lot has changed in 20 years.

“Now the taco room is flooded,” says Guevara.

Interestingly, Taco Diner’s Double Cheeseburger is one of the most popular items. Sensing an opportunity for synergy, Guevara’s team will be selling this cheeseburger at the new Mi Cocina in Klyde Warren Park – at the back of the building on a patio and take away area called La Parada.

In addition to the cheeseburger, La Parada sells grilled cheese sandwiches with avocado fritters, taquitos, frozen drinks for children and alcohol for adults. For anyone who remembers the former kiosk called Relish, La Parada is in this area – but it has more space and is positioned so that it feels like its own side concept.

“It has become a kind of incubator for us,” Guevara said in an August 2021 interview with The News.

At La Parada, the team is testing new menu items that could end up at Mi Cocina. It will also be a place where they can sneak into taco diner favorites and see how they sell.

“That gives us the chance to change things,” says Guevara.

For more food news, follow Sarah Blaskovich on Twitter @sblaskovich.

Mi Cocinas Mambo Taxis will go down McKinney Avenue.  The new restaurant is slated to open in place of Del Frisco's Grille on McKinney Avenue in Dallas in early 2022.

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