New restaurant offers specialty tacos

These aren’t your mama’s tacos.

The Frat Boy taco has beer-braised chicken, jicama, cilantro, chipotle aioli and lime.

The Coconut Shrimp taco contains three shrimp, cabbage, jicama, plum sauce and lime.

The list goes on at the new Verde restaurant at Cypress Falls. Verde has only been open a few weeks and it has not even had its grand opening yet, but restaurant operators Melissa and Aaron Nance have big plans.

Verde is right along Cypress Creek where the Back Porch restaurant used to be. It has been enlarged and there are plans to put in a beer bar with 10 or so local beers on tap as well as a soda fountain.

Melissa runs the front of the restaurant while the kitchen is Aaron’s domain.

Aaron started cooking at age 18. He attended culinary school in Austin and then went to work. He has cooked at retirement homes, the Cypress Creek Cafe and his Triforks food truck.

“I learned French cooking techniques and sauces at culinary school,” says Aaron. “I learned how to do bulk cooking and healthy cooking at the retirement home.

For six years he was the chef at the Cypress Creek Cafe, then tragedy struck and the cafe burned down. It was time to find another job. “I didn’t want to work for anyone else, so I opened up a food truck.”

The Triforks food truck is still operating at Cypress Falls Lodge and serves burgers, cheesesteak sandwiches and wraps. When the spot along Cypress Creek opened up, Aaron jumped at the opportunity. “The food truck was my baby, but I finally got my own brick and mortar (restaurant),” he says.

Just married

Melissa was working at the Cypress Falls Lodge when they met. The couple was married in January of this year. She does the books, marketing, secures the various permits and manages the front of the house.

The current menu features 10 types of tacos plus chips and dips, Mexican-stye street corn and beans. They promise more elaborate chef’s dinners during the slower winter months.

The tacos are — in Aaron’s words — “Texas sized.” A couple of tacos will do nicely for dinner.

The restaurant overlooks the creek and is a popular swimming hole in the summer. The main dining area was expanded out about 26 feet and the top deck was extended 18 feet. They built a long bar down the middle of the restaurant so swimmers could duck in for a quick snack. There are large tables around now, but they plan to add smaller tables for a more private experience.

The menu is limited, but expect it to grow. They plan to add a brunch down the road and the menu will expand.

“This has been a big undertaking,” says Aaron. “We had the truck for two years. Then, when we moved here, there was a whole lot of learning to do.”

The rollout of the new menu will be slow “because we have so many new employees who are still learning,” says Melissa. “We learned our lesson on the food truck. The first night there we were so overwhelmed. It was chaos.

Verde currently has 14 employees, most of them full-time.

Always fresh

All the ingredients Aaron uses are fresh and everything is made from scratch. In fact, that’s where the name Verde comes from. “To us it means, fresh and healthy,” says Melissa. They get shipments of fresh fish twice a week for the fish tacos.

Don’t be surprised to see some French dishes in the future, thanks to Aaron’s formal culinary training.

“The biggest challenge has been construction,” says Aaron. Nothing happens quite as quickly as he wants.

Aaron and Melissa also do catering — mostly for weddings and other events at Cypress Falls. Aaron, who was preparing Monterey Chicken for an event, says: “I love it when they have something new for me to do. I like to be challenged.”

Verde is open seven days a week, from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., although they close on Saturday afternoons during events along the creek. Still, Aaron is working fewer hours than at the food truck where he used to arrive at 8 a.m. and leave about 10 p.m. every day.

Verde is a work in progress so expect changes.