The whole thing started because two guys couldn’t find anywhere decent to watch the World Cup.
That was 2010 in Dallas. Rich Hicks and his business partner were sitting in a Hooters when one of their employees set down his beer and said they needed a place like this, for us. Meaning for Latino sports fans. Meaning somewhere the fútbol was on the main screen instead of buried on a corner TV with the sound off.
Ojos Locos opened later that year, close enough to the 2010 World Cup that the tournament launched it. Randy DeWitt and Jack Gibbons of Front Burner, the Twin Peaks people, came in as partners. Sixteen years later there are 35 locations across five states, one of them in North Las Vegas with a casino and a 90-room hotel called Hotel Jefe attached.
A Dallas company born out of a soccer tournament just watched the World Cup come back through Arlington this summer. Now it’s opening early for American football.
Starting Saturday, DFW locations open at 10 a.m. on weekends with the chain’s first breakfast menu in sixteen years. It runs 10 to 1, Saturdays and Sundays, through the season.
Here’s the smart part. Early college kickoffs hit at eleven our time, NFL pregame runs before that, and Liga MX and Premier League matches air in the morning here. A bar that opens at eleven misses all of it. Ten is the hour where football and fútbol overlap on the same Saturday, and this place has always programmed for both.
Chilaquiles Verdes or Rojos are the order: fried corn tortillas simmered in tomatillo or red chili sauce, queso Monterrey, avocado, onion, cilantro, two fried eggs, with refried beans and rice. Verdes for brightness, rojos if you want something that sits heavier into the second quarter. The Big Breakfast Burrito is the one people will photograph — scrambled eggs, slow-braised carnitas, crispy potatoes, queso Monterrey, guacamole, crema and pico in an oversized tortilla. The carnitas are braised rather than heated up from a bag, and there’s enough of it that this eats like lunch.
Breakfast Tacos come three to an order with eggs, bacon and a blend of Chihuahua, Monterrey and fresco, which is more cheese than anybody bothers with. The Breakfast Sandwich keeps it simple with eggs, bacon, American and pepper jack, avocado and mayo on a toasted bun. Add flame-grilled carne asada to any of it if you’re staying for the full slate.
The bar’s open the whole time. Micheladas and cold cerveza, plus agua fresca de piña and horchata if you’re not drinking, neither of which shows up at a normal sports bar.
Ojos runs a scratch kitchen, presses its own tortillas, pours 29-degree draft, and popularized the balón, the 100-ounce pitcher you now see everywhere. Servers and broadcasts are bilingual. Home games for the Latino crowd, away games for everybody else, as the company puts it.
Sixteen years without breakfast, and what finally moved them was the football calendar. Breakfast starts Saturday at 10 a.m. at DFW locations. Find the closest one at ojoslocos.com.
