Before Torchy’s, before Velvet Taco, before every bar in town put a fried avocado on a tortilla and called it a special, there was Tin Star.
Rich Hicks opened the first one in Uptown in 1999. He’d come up through Macaroni Grill, where he was an area director at 25, and his idea was simple: take the taco seriously, put it in a fast-casual room, and charge accordingly. Brisket and queso. Pork and kimchi. A portabella taco with roasted corn and sweet potatoes that people still bring up by name. In North Texas at the time, that was a strange way to sell tacos.
It worked well enough that Tin Star grew to 16 restaurants and franchised into Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Nebraska, Nevada and South Carolina. That’s where it came apart. A small company in Plano couldn’t support stores that far away, and the food was harder to execute than a burger chain’s. Hicks sold in the late 2000s. The brand changed hands a few times and limped along another decade before the last location closed.
Hicks didn’t disappear. He co-founded MOOYAH Burgers, Fries & Shakes in Plano in 2007 and built it into a national chain, then opened Pie Tap Pizza Workshop + Bar in the Design District in 2016.
Now he’s bringing Tin Star back in McKinney, with Frisco planned for spring 2027. He’s the only original founder involved, and he still had the recipes.
Recipes are one thing. Getting them to taste the way they did 25 years ago is another, which is why the smartest move here may be the hire. Hicks brought back Ruben Velazquez, who started at Tin Star clearing tables and running a register before working his way up to cook, manager and general manager.
Back on the menu are the OG #9, grilled chicken with red onion jalapeño marmalade, sweet potato straws and Jack cheese, the Cowboy Kimchi taco with pork and grilled onions, the portabella with roasted corn and sweet potatoes, and brisket with queso. New to the board is a salmon BLT taco, which sounds like a stretch until you remember this place was serving kimchi on a taco when most of Dallas ordered ground beef in a hard shell.
The bigger change is the bar. The original was a counter-service taco shop. The new one, listed as Tin Star Tacos & Tequila, has a full bar with at least eight frozen cocktails running in slushie machines along one wall. Posted weekend hours start at 9 a.m., which puts breakfast tacos and a frozen drink on the same table.
Hicks has a partner in the relaunch, Aaron White, and they picked McKinney first. Tin Star spent its first life in Dallas and Plano. It’s coming back to the suburbs that grew up after it left.
There’s risk in it. Nostalgia gets people in the door once, and the chains that took Tin Star’s idea national have had 20 years to sharpen it. The counterargument is that Hicks has built three brands from nothing, and he’s the only one from the original group who wanted this one back.
Tin Star is at 8801 Eldorado Parkway, Suite 100, in McKinney. The website still lists it as coming soon, with posted hours of 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Friday, 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. Saturday and 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday. Check before you drive out.
