Blue Mesa Grill has been serving Southwestern food in North Texas since 1988, when Jim and Liz Baron opened their first location in Addison. Nearly four decades later, the restaurant is still family-run. Liz remains Co-Founder, and the couple’s son Zak Baron now serves as President, running the company his parents built one dining room at a time.
There are three locations today: Addison at 14866 Montfort Drive, Plano at 8200 Dallas Parkway, and Fort Worth at 612 Carroll Street, the last of which sits in the West 7th district and anchors the company’s catering and events arm. All three share the same DNA. Bold color on the walls, a full tequila bar, and a menu that pulls from New Mexico, South Texas, and old-school Tex-Mex without picking one lane and staying in it.
The food leans on a handful of dishes that have stayed on the menu long enough to become the reason people keep coming back. The Adobe Pie is the closest thing Blue Mesa has to a signature, a formed tamale built from masa, chicken, and green chiles, baked until perfect. It reads more like comfort food than a special-occasion plate, which is probably why it’s outlasted every trend that’s come through Dallas dining since 1988. The Carne Asada is built on skirt steak, grilled and topped with chimichurri and crispy fried onions, served alongside a black bean adobe pie and grilled vegetables.
The Seafood Mixed Grill pairs grilled rojo shrimp with a red chile salmon fillet and a blue crab and shrimp enchilada, which gives it more range than most surf-and-turf plates that just throw a shrimp skewer next to a steak. The Churrascaritas is the one to order for a table that can’t agree on protein, a skewer platter with jumbo shrimp, smoked pepper sausage, chimichurri steak, and ginger-chipotle chicken, all served over Chimayo corn with Mesa panna bread on the side. For dessert, the sopapilla cheesecake takes the fried, honey-dusted pastry and turns it into a cheesecake crust, and the trio of mini tres flans lines up honey, cheesecake, and a rotating seasonal flavor side by side so nobody has to commit to just one.
Brunch is the thing Blue Mesa is best known for locally, and it runs on a schedule worth knowing before you show up hungry. Saturday brunch is offered only at the Addison and Plano locations, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday brunch runs at all three locations, from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. It’s an all-you-can-eat buffet with made-to-order omelets, a carving station with brisket and pulled pork, the Adobe Pie, and a dessert table deep enough to justify skipping breakfast beforehand. Mimosas are included in the price, which runs $30 a person, $15 for kids six to eleven, with kids five and under eating free. Holiday brunches for Thanksgiving, Easter, and Mother’s Day run a bit higher, and Father’s Day brunch is priced separately at $35.
Weekday hours are consistent across the three locations, closed Mondays, open 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday, and 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Friday. Saturday hours stretch a little longer, 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. at Addison and Plano, and 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. at Fort Worth, which opens an hour later on Saturdays than the other two locations. Sunday closes at 5 p.m. after brunch service winds down. Each location takes its own reservations and runs its own to-go ordering, so it’s worth confirming details on the specific location’s page rather than assuming they’re identical, especially around holidays.
Blue Mesa has also built a real reputation as a caterer, not just a sit-down restaurant. The company has been recognized as one of the largest restaurant caterers in North Texas, and the Fort Worth location runs its own dedicated event space, the 5th and Carroll Event Center, for parties and weddings that need something bigger than a private dining room. The Good Karma Guacamole program, which donates fifty cents to a local charity for every order of guacamole sold, has run for years and is one of the quieter, more consistent parts of how the Barons have run the business.
For anyone who’s driven past one of the three locations without stopping in, or who hasn’t been back since the pandemic reshuffled what brunch buffets looked like, Blue Mesa is worth the reintroduction. It’s the kind of restaurant that has quietly stayed open, stayed family-owned, and kept its regulars fed for going on forty years, which in North Texas dining is its own kind of achievement.
