Fort Worth – Fort Worth may be known as Cowtown thanks to its rich history in the cattle industry but just a stone’s throw from the western ways of the Fort Worth Stockyards, you’ll find a small sanctuary known for some terrific Tex-Mex at Joe T. Garcia’s. “We win best patio,” said Joe T. Lancarte. “I mean, nobody else has a patio like this in Dallas, Fort Worth. Everybody knows that.”
Joe T. is the grandson of this restaurant’s namesake Joe T. Garcia, but it was his grandmother Mamasuez and his mother Hope that turned this little restaurant into a well-known stop on lots of folks’ bucket lists. “It’s definitely different from the 60s and 70s,” said Joe T. “It’s changed a lot. When my grandfather passed away in the 50s, my mom was the only one really that stuck with her and stayed with her and helped her run the business and keeping going with my dad.”
When they started it wasn’t originally Tex-Mex. “It was barbecue,” said Joe T. “First, barbecue; then, the Mexican food. Right, correct.”
Back in 1935 Joe. T’s started with 6 tables. “My grandparents worked very hard, very hard to get this thing started back in the 30s,” said Joe T. “That was tough. Then when my grandfather passed away and left it with my mom and grandmother, you had two women running a business back in the … it was a man’s world back in the days and two women running a business, they tell them, ‘You have no chance. You need to go ahead and just sell.’ Well, my mom said, ‘No way. I’ll prove you wrong.’ And she did. That’s one thing our mother always taught is hard work. Don’t ever be afraid of it, and I’m not.”
Apparently the whole family took that work ethic to heart. “Every time you walk into this business, this restaurant, you always will see a family member,” said Joe T. “Always. You’ll either see me, Lanny, my sisters, one of us. You will see us here.”
The picturesque patio, with the family’s old pool converted into foundation, pulls in a ton of people. But the real reason this place is so renowned? “People go crazy over my enchiladas,” said Joe T. “This is the enchilada station here. Now, as you can see, we roll every enchilada by hand all day long.”
Joe T. took us to the back to get started on the enchilada plate which comes with way more than just enchiladas. “That is the number one for that is the enchilada dinner,” said Joe T. “We call it the family dinner.”
It all starts with their freshly made tortillas. “We do our tortillas here,” said Joe T. “As you can see, this is all part of one plate. Now you can see we make the tortillas as the order comes out.”
Then things get saucy. “We’ll pass it through the grease here, get the tortilla sauce, then she’ll pass it in through our sauce here,” said Joe T. “It’s a red chili sauce, a red chili ancho that we use, puts our onion. As you can see, put the cheese in here. We get it on a hot flame. Get it going, get it melted.”
The amount of cheese they gg through here is staggering. “They’re 55-pound boxes of cheese, and I go through 70 cases a week.”
That’s over 3,800 pounds of cheese a week and it all finishes off in the broiler while two tacos, a plate of guacamole and their famous nachos round things out.
So here we have it, the world-famous Joe T. Garcia’s enchilada dinner. Not wasting any time, we’re going to go straight into those enchiladas because that is what people come to Joe T’s for. With that special mixture of cheese, this thing is ridiculous. “The quality of the cheese is perfect,” said one customer.
Considering the word Tex-Mex was first printed in 1945, Joe T.’s might have had something to do with that. Without a doubt, some of the best cheese enchiladas in Texas. You can see why Kevin Fowler thinks having these enchiladas is synonymous with Texas, because Texas is forever. “I don’t think there’s anything like it.”
As awesome as these enchiladas are, there’s a lot more going on with this family dinner. “The star is that cheese tostada or cheese nacho,” said another guest. “It’s incredible. And you think, I don’t know, nacho, but they make it like no other. The cheese is really perfect.”
Well, you can definitely see why Joe t Garcia’s has been a pillar of Fort Worth for all these years. True to form Tex-Mex, that’s definitely well worth the stop on The Texas Bucket List. “’We got to keep that name up and that’s putting the best thing we have on that table every day, seven days a week,” said Joe T.