Velvet Taco expands beyond its Dallas roots, opening a Fort Worth Velvet Taco today

Velvet Taco opens its Fort Worth restaurant today, which means the wait for their fresh elotes, cornmeal-crusted oyster tacos and red velvet cake will end at 5 p.m.

“If we get our final permits on Monday, as we expect, we’ll be open for dinner Monday and Tuesday nights then begin lunch and late hours on Thursday,”  John Franke, Velvet Taco’s top chef told EscapeHatchDallas.com at a preview last week.

Velvet Taco opened its original store at the busy intersection of Knox-Henderson and I-75 in Dallas in August, 2011. This will be VT’s second.

“It’s taken us a couple of years to find the perfect Fort Worth location, but I think we’ve found it,” says Franke. A location for the third Velvet Taco is under contract in Chicago, with a fourth in the works for Southern California.

Velvet Taco stakes out a taste territory with little competition, stuffing a global mix of flavors into corn and flour tortillas. The Fort Worth Velvet Taco sits west of Montgomery Plaza on West 7th street.

Other than a taco shell, you won’t find anything traditional about these tacos.  Instead of beef fajita or carne asada, VT gives you rotisserie chicken and duck bacon, roasted pork and house-brined pickles, and cornmeal-fried oysters with chili butter.

The menu at the new FW location is nearly identical to the Dallas menu, like the addition of beers from Martin House Brewing Company in Fort Worth.

One of Velvet Taco’s most popular take-away dishes is its “back door chicken,” a whole rotisserie chicken with sides of elotes, tortillas and salsa which sells for just $10 — half price– on Mondays. You order the chicken by knocking on the restaurant’s back door.

“We’ll start selling them a week from Monday in Fort Worth, too,” says Franke, “but here they’ll be ‘side door chickens,'” which will be sold from a special window built into the side of the restaurant. And yes, Monday’s they’ll be half price.

Velvet Taco keeps late hours, too, staying open past midnight most nights.

2700 W 7th St, Fort Worth, (817) 887-9810.