{"id":501113,"date":"2026-01-08T10:31:16","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T10:31:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/501113\/"},"modified":"2026-01-08T10:31:16","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T10:31:16","slug":"tinies-fort-worth-reopens-with-adrian-burciaga","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/501113\/","title":{"rendered":"Tinie\u2019s Fort Worth Reopens with Adrian Burciaga"},"content":{"rendered":"

On South Main St., inside a restored 1930s building that has weathered nearly a century of Fort Worth change, Tinie\u2019s <\/a>is preparing for something it hasn\u2019t quite had since it opened six years ago \u2014 a reset.<\/p>\n

The restaurant, named for Christina \u201cTinie\u201d Castillo, the mother of founder Sarah Castillo, will reopen next week with a new menu, a refreshed sense of purpose, and a familiar but newly empowered figure at the helm. Adrian Burciaga \u2014 best known locally as the co-founder of Don Artemio \u2014 has stepped in to oversee daily operations and steer Tinie’s back toward its original ambition.<\/p>\n

Castillo, whose r\u00e9sum\u00e9 also\u00a0includes Taco Heads and the fast-growing La Pulga Spirits<\/a> brand, says the decision was driven as much by necessity as by trust. \u201cMy other partnership with Tinie\u2019s, we decided to go different ways.\u00a0I took over Tinie\u2019s\u00a0and\u00a0was looking for a strong managing partner to help run it. And of course Adrian came straight to mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

The timing was perfect, given Burciaga’s departure from Don Artemio in Oct. of 2025<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI just texted him one day, and I was like, \u2018Hey, what are you up to?\u2019 she says. \u201cAfter that, we met a few times, and I told him my goals for Tinie\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those goals had been delayed almost from the start. Tinie\u2019s opened one week before COVID shut the world down. Survival mode followed, and ambition took a back seat. \u201cWe had to survive that, and then we just never could catch up,\u201d Castillo says. \u201cThings were just slipping, and quality was dropping. We just needed a shakeup and a revamp.\u201d<\/p>\n

What Castillo wanted \u2014 and still wants \u2014 is to offer diners a transportive culinary journey. Basically, to take diners out of Fort Worth and put them in a space that resembles the culinary style of Mexico City.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Burciaga understood immediately. He has known Castillo since 2013, when she was still running Taco Heads out of a food truck on West Seventh. \u201cEver since then, we have stayed in contact,” Burciaga says.\u00a0“She\u2019s a good friend.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Castillo reached out last fall, Burciaga had recently left Don Artemio and was weighing his next move. \u201cI kind of put my cards on the table on what\u2019s next,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Tinie\u2019s, he says, felt less like a pivot and more like an obligation. \u201cSarah, in her case, she said, \u2018I need help. Can you actually partner and be part of us and help us all from the ground up?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

By mid-November, Burciaga Hospitality Group had assumed management. Burciaga partnered with wine aficionado Martin Quirarte on operations, while Burciaga\u2019s wife, Maria Jose Cervantes, oversees marketing and storytelling. Since taking over, Burciaga and his team have made incremental changes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe started adjusting a few recipes, training the team on expectations for hospitality \u2014 creating a base for the bigger plan.\u201d<\/p>\n

Castillo jokes that Burciaga has another name for it. \u201cAdrian calls it an intervention, a subtle intervention,\u201d she says playfully.<\/p>\n

The most visible changes are coming quickly. Downstairs, Tinie\u2019s will offer a full, chef-driven menu under the leadership of Chef Ix-Chel Ornelas Hern\u00e1ndez, a culinary researcher from Oaxaca dedicated to preserving ancestral techniques. \u201cWe\u2019re technically changing the entire menu under Ix-Chel\u2019s leadership,\u201d Burciaga says. \u201cShe\u2019s coming to train the kitchen and put her print on the menu.\u201d<\/p>\n

Upstairs, Escondite (Spanish for hideaway), will lean into its original intent as an agave-focused bar. \u201cIt\u2019s not necessarily a speakeasy, there\u2019s no hidden door,\u201d Castillo says, \u201cbut it is just a cool mezcal tequila bar with small bites.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are physical changes, too. The downstairs patio will be enclosed in glass, greenhouse-style, allowing for private dinners year-round. \u201cThese are some things that we\u2019ve been wanting to do,\u201d Castillo says. \u201cWe\u2019re just prioritizing it now.\u201d<\/p>\n

If the partnership feels unusually seamless, both say that\u2019s because it\u2019s built on something rare in the restaurant business \u2014 mutual respect without rivalry. \u201cAdrian and I, we both come from very similar concepts,\u201d Castillo says. \u201cBut we both supported each other. We weren\u2019t competing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Burciaga echoes that sentiment. \u201cI think our goal is just to get [Tinie’s]\u00a0back to what Sarah had in mind in the first place six years ago,\u201d he says. \u201cWe don\u2019t want to change a lot of the vision that she had in the first place, but we want to correct the route moving forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tinie\u2019s is expected to reopen to the public next week, with a soft rollout beginning Tuesday, Jan. 13. For Castillo, the timing feels like relief. For Burciaga, it feels like a purpose. And for Fort Worth, it feels like a familiar restaurant finally getting its second act.<\/p>\n

As Castillo puts it, summing up the partnership, \u201cI have so much respect for Adrian, and I know the way he works, and I feel that he has respect for me as well. The feelings are so mutual that it was just so easy to partner.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On South Main St., inside a restored 1930s building that has weathered nearly a century of Fort Worth…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":501114,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5138],"tags":[5229,7371,7372,358,224832,7453,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-501113","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fort-worth","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-fort-worth","10":"tag-fortworth","11":"tag-texas","12":"tag-tinie","13":"tag-top-story","14":"tag-tx","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-united-states-of-america","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","19":"tag-us","20":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115859022686865256","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=501113"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501113\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/501114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=501113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=501113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=501113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}