10/04/2026
Dallas lost a legend this week.
Mico Rodriguez, founder of Mi Cocina, has died.
In 1991, he opened a 12-table restaurant in a foreclosed strip center at Preston and Forest.
He had grown up filling water glasses at El Chico. He was broke and working on a second chance. His partners put up $82,500.
What came next changed Tex-Mex.
Clean lines instead of neon b**r signs. Elegant rooms. Enchiladas Dallas was happy to pay real money for.
I've eaten more than my share of them.
His life wasn't a tidy story. He spoke openly about his battle with addiction, and many of his hardest seasons played out in public.
No one is perfect. Legacy was never about being perfect.
I spend my days helping families plan for what they will leave behind. Mico's life offers a few lessons:
1️⃣ Your legacy is bigger than your balance sheet.
He left the company he founded years ago. Mi Cocina still carries his fingerprints.
2️⃣ People are the real inheritance.
When he stepped away, not one restaurant manager left. As the new CEO put it: "I didn't hire them. Mico did."
3️⃣ Plan in the good seasons for the hard ones.
Brilliance and struggle often live in the same person. The time to sign a power of attorney, a trust, and a succession plan is when life is going well.
4️⃣ Build something that can outlast you.
The best businesses and the best families keep going when the founder can't.
So, a few questions worth asking:
If you stepped away tomorrow, what would keep going?
Who would step in?
Would they know what you wanted?
Build boldly. Plan honestly. Leave something worth keeping.
Raise a Mambo Taxi for Mico. 🥂
