Crystal Wise
For native Texan and expert burger-maker Jonathan Arguello, food has been a lifelong passion — his reason to get up in the morning, his reason he’s out so late, the reason he is who he is today.
To illustrate that point, he’ll talk infinitely about his grandparents and great-grandparents, avid cooks whose meat-smoking skills and secrets undoubtedly left a permanent sear on him. From there, he’ll tell you about his parents, who ran a tortilla-making business in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where Arguello and his family lived for many years when he was young.
But few subjects light a fire, so to speak, under Arguello quite like hamburgers. A couple of bites into one of his burgers from his newly launched food truck, Gustos Burgers + Stuff, and that passion will ring clear; this is someone who really loves — and knows how to cook – burgers.
Gustos is one of this year’s best new restaurants, even though, technically, it’s not really a restaurant. Arguello serves his excellent smashburgers out of a food truck parked in an alley next to the new Hotel Dryce on Montgomery Street. Diners can take their food to-go or they can enjoy it inside the Dryce’s cozy bar or on its spacious patio.
The burgers are fabulously messy affairs, a combo of gooey American cheese, still melting when it hits your plate; Best Maid pickles; grilled onions; a secret sauce; ketchup; mustard; buns whose skins are still glistening from swaths of butter; and masterfully cooked patties, pounded thin, their edges perfectly crisped.
“It took years to get this recipe right,” Arguello says. “I tried thin patties, thick patties, different kinds of buns. There was a lot of trial and error. But I decided to go with a smashburger, which hasn’t caught on in Fort Worth just yet. They’re big on the West Coast, but here, people aren’t that familiar with them.”
Smashburgers are hamburgers whose patties have been pounded or “smashed” until they’re super thin. The edges of the patty are crisp while the patty’s interior remains juicy — a balancing act that requires patience and a deft wrist. Two local barbecue spots, Brix Barbecue and Dayne’s Craft Barbecue, also serve excellent renditions of smashburgers.
Crystal Wise
Jonathan Arguello
To make his burgers, Arguello uses 80/20 chuck, pressed hard against the grill with what he calls a “cast-iron smasher.” “It’s what my parents used to make their tortillas,” he says. “There’s a bit more to it than just throwing a patty on the grill and smashing it. The timing is important. The patties are so thin, you run the risk of overcooking or burning them.”
A veggie option is made with Beyond Meat patties. Burgers are served with one, two, or three patties, or as sliders. The menu’s lone side item: tater tots, served plain or loaded with cheese, peppers, and housemade chipotle mayo sauce.
The 34-year-old native of Midland, Texas, is a relative newcomer to Fort Worth’s restaurant scene, although he’s been a part of it, off and on, for years, primarily in a behind-the-scenes capacity. He helped Sarah Castillo open the first brick-and-mortar location of Taco Heads on Montgomery, and Nick Kithas, owner of the nearby Jazz Café, took him under his wing, showing him the ropes of running a restaurant.
“I count both of them as mentors,” Arguello says. “I learned so much from them, from their work ethic to the care they put in their food to the way they’re both very humble and true to themselves.”
Two years ago, Arguello took a short-lived stab at running his own place, opening a small burger business inside of a convenience store on Fort Worth’s south side. He catered to those in the neighborhood, selling cheap burgers to people barely scraping by. “We were all struggling together, to be honest,” he says. “A lot of our customers were struggling to pay for their food — sometimes we’d just give it to them. And we were struggling to stay open. It was a humbling experience, to say the least.”
Arguello’s burger operation came to an abrupt halt in January 2021 after the Fort Worth SWAT team came in, looking not for burgers but for someone associated with the building Arguello was working out of. “Talk about a surreal experience,” he says. “They had an arrest warrant and were hoping to find ... whoever they were looking for. It was like something you see on TV.”
The next day, Arguello and his small staff moved out.
“This time, I’m better prepared,” he says. “At the convenience store, we just sort of threw that place open with no marketing or word of mouth or anything behind it. It was a great learning experience. But I feel like we have the kinks worked out now. We have a food truck, a place to permanently park it, and solid recipes. We’re in a much better position now.”
To promote his move to Hotel Dryce last fall, Arguello put his background in marketing — he graduated from the University of Texas at Arlington with a marketing degree and once ran his own PR firm — to work, launching a popular Instagram account filled with sexy burger photos and videos.
In addition to the food truck, he has a “food van” that he uses for catering and pop-up events. Dude’s got plans — big plans.
“You know how I got into the food business?” he asks. “When my dad was delivering tortillas, I would sell Chiclets and Mexican candy to the dishwashers and waiters and waitresses. I think I was just 5 or 6 years old. That’s how long I’ve been in the food business. Now that I have a plan, I want to see how far I can go with it.”
Gustos Burgers + Stuff at Hotel Dryce, 3621 Byers Ave., instagram.com/hoteldryce
