Shakespeare famously once asked “what’s in a name?”. For an upcoming DFW restaurant, the answer is an entire dining and hospitality ethos. Agave & Ember Mexican Cuisine is bringing the enviable tenets of strength, resilience, passion, and hope the titular ingredients symbolize to Allen, qualities certain to cement it as a local staple.
The restaurant will be moving into a renovated storefront located at 960 W Exchange Parkway, Suite 150. The space will require a decent amount of work; forms submitted with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation describes the needed alterations as “Complete tenant finish-out of an existing cold shell commercial space for a new full-service Mexican restaurant (Agave & Ember Mexican Cuisine). The project consists of constructing all interior improvements within an approximately 2,924 square foot.”
Agave & Ember co-owner Blanca Basinger explains that her team has considerable hospitality experience that they’re excited to funnel into this new project. She generously made some time to speak with What Now Dallas about opening what promises to become a new DFW favorite.
“We’ve all worked in the restaurant business for so many years.” she states. “We have a passion for it and I have a great team.”
Basinger and her crew plan to bring something distinctive to the DFW dining scene. She describes it saying: “We want to create something different and unique. We’re all from Mexico and we don’t want to offer the same menu everyone has.”
Agave & Ember will differentiate itself through house-made ingredients and cuisine. Basinger explains: “We’ll be making our own sauces. A lot of the restaurants use pre-made things, we want to do everything from scratch. The chef is incredible and has some wonderful ideas.”
The Agave & Ember team want to create a dining experience that is at once elevated and inclusive. Basinger states: “We want families to come and feel peaceful, and we want to create a nice environment-a higher scale Mexican restaurant, where you can come and feel like you’re home, you’re relaxing.”
Basinger originally hoped to bring Agave & Ember to Frisco, however destiny had other plans. When Frisco failed to materialize, she visited the Allen location many times and realized that the neighborhood would benefit from a restaurant like Agave & Ember. “It felt different.” she states. “There is no nice eating restaurant where you can share a meal there. We decided we would get the lease. We’re very pleased. We feel good about it. We want to continue keeping our faith and belief that God is the one that opens doors.”
The Agave & Ember crew chose the name with care and deliberation; agave represents strength, endurance, and resilience, while ember is symbolic of enduring passion and hope-qualities Basinger and her team will be using to fuel the restaurant.
DFW foodies will be able to check out Agave & Ember’s delicious fare for themselves relatively soon; Basinger is hoping to have the eatery customer-ready by May.
The Agave & Ember crew are bringing the same care to the overall dining experience that they have dedicated to the name. Basinger offers this summation, certain to inspire enthusiasm in future customers: “We’re working very hard to make it different for our clients. We want it to feel like family-to get to know our clients, get to share what we’re doing.”
