The little family-run restaurant with a lot of history: Mi Casita marks 30 years in Denton
Mi Casita is celebrating 30 years of serving Mexican food favorites at 110 N. Carroll Blvd. Matt and Lilly Kohandani opened their family-owned restaurant on Aug. 22, 1996.
Mi Casita co-owner Matt Kohandani poses in front of a picture of his family. The family-owned Mexican restaurant on Carroll Boulevard has now been open for 30 years.
Matt Kohandani points at a photo album showing some of the first photos taken of Mi Casita. The restaurant is celebrating its 30th anniversary.
In a photo from 2003, co-owner Matt Kohandani shows off a plate of Mi Casita's nachos.
At Mi Casita, the dining room isn’t large. A handful of tables and booths fill a compact space with string lights hanging from the ceiling and decorations up on the wooden walls. The restaurant has maintained its warm, welcoming feeling for three decades now.
For 30 years, Mi Casita at 110 N. Carroll Blvd. has sold Mexican food to Denton folks and has seen many changes to the city. But in that time, not much has changed in their flagship restaurant.
Matt and Lilly Kohandani opened their family-owned restaurant on Aug. 22, 1996.
Mi Casita co-owner Matt Kohandani posing with an open album of the first days of Mi Casita. The photo he is showing is of himself and his wife, Lilly, on the restaurant's opening day.
Before they opened Mi Casita, Matt Kohandani worked for a convenience store business as a district manager. Lilly is a good cook, Matt said, so family members and friends encouraged them to open a restaurant.
After Lilly found the building on Carroll Boulevard in 1995, they signed a lease and worked to fix up the place before officially opening. Last year, they bought the building they were renting.
“It started with just me and my wife working on it all day and all night, but we made it,” Matt said.
On Aug. 21, 1996, the restaurant had its soft opening for people to try the food — which was a hit, according to Matt. The next day, Mi Casita opened its doors.
For the 30 years Mi Casita has been open, the Kohandanis have maintained the same recipes and menu, occasionally adding items but never removing anything. The menu, which is inspired by Lilly’s grandmother, is based on Monterrey style of cooking.
In a 2003 photo, co-owner Lilly Kohandani takes orders at the front counter of Mi Casita Mexican restaurant.
“I keep it the same way I did 30 years ago,” Matt Kohandani said. “It’s still the same. Hot sauce tastes the same from 30 years ago. Everything is the same, I didn’t change anything on my food.”
As part of a long-standing family business, Matt said he has seen many people at different stages in life visiting the restaurant. Customers, including University of North Texas alumni, have returned while passing through Denton with their kids and have been surprised to see Matt still behind the counter.
“They just go crazy; they just can’t believe it,” Matt said. “After all these years, I am still here, they see the same family, it’s me and my wife, still running it.”
While Matt Kohandani now primarily runs the restaurant, he still has family members help out, like his brother and children.
The Kohandani family has put its roots down in Denton. Matt moved to Denton in 1977 to study and met Lilly in his second week in town, almost 50 years ago. They were married on Mother’s Day in 1979.
Members of the Kohandani family pose together at Mi Casita on Aug. 16, 2006, for the restaurant's 10th anniversary. Matt and Lilly Kohandani are shown at far right with their son, Armand Kohandani, at far left; daughter Bianca Kohandani, Matt's brother Barry Kohandani, and daughters Monica Torres, front center, and Erica Kohandani.
Matt graduated from UNT in 1984 with a degree in industrial engineering. He said he worked in the industry for about a year before starting work in retail, which he also did while he was in school.
Most of Matt and Lilly’s four children went on to attend UNT.
The Kohandanis helped one of their children open a business adjacent to theirs. Son Armand Kohandani opened Denton Camera Exchange at 117 Piner St. in 2012. While in school, Armand worked with his parents at the restaurant, but he felt the food industry wasn’t for him, he told the North Texas Daily.
Challenges and rewards
Thirty years in business have not come without its challenges. While not much has changed around Mi Casita, staying the same has not been easy. The restaurant has weathered the COVID-19 pandemic and continues to face rising food costs.
When the pandemic hit Texas in March 2020, businesses and schools had to close down abruptly in an effort to prevent the virus’s spread.
While they sat in their empty restaurant, Matt and Lilly started talking about how schoolkids were affected by the shutdown. Students who could get lunch and breakfast at their schools for free or reduced cost suddenly lost access to those meals. Meanwhile, many families were struggling with lost income.
The Kohandanis decided to hand out free food to kids, and after posting signs and spreading the word through social media, they saw around 50 people going through the drive-thru.
Matt said it was expensive to hand out free food, but a local company gave them a check for $5,000 to help, and later more people offered donations.
What started out as a week of helping the community led to three as they received attention from WFAA-TV (Channel 8) for their work.
“I didn’t know when they were going to air that segment,” he said. “One afternoon when I was closing and I was by myself, the phone started ringing. People started calling from Allen, Garland, Arlington and all over the place wanting to know how they could help.”
“It makes me cry, but a lot of people helped a lot. And so, we just kept it going for about a month, helping more people.”
A small whiteboard announces the celebration of Mi Casita’s 30-year anniversary on a counter at the restaurant. Behind the whiteboard is a yellow sign with a message thanking Denton for 29 years of patronage.
For the 30 years Mi Casita has been open, Matt said they have changed menu prices only three times — the last time in 2018. The restaurant’s online menu does note that prices are “subject to change.”
“Through COVID and all the issues, everything is going up,” he said. “Everything is going up. I haven’t upped my prices. I don’t make as much money, but it’s the reality of it.”
Reflecting on his time running the restaurant, Matt has seen many people become regulars, but as the cycle of life takes its toll, he has heard of longtime customers passing away.
“I really like people coming in — we become really close, just coming in almost every day — but then one day you hear that and it’s just very difficult,” he said.
Despite the sadness of losing people, they have also seen many important milestones.
Matt said some of the most positive experiences he has had in the restaurant were graduation parties, engagement parties and weddings they were a part of.
Matt Kohandani hopes people don’t take Mi Casita for granted because they have been in business for so long. For him, staying in business has never been only about serving food. It’s about taking care of the people who have supported Mi Casita for three decades. He plans to keep to keep doing that, but he says the restaurant will need its community to keep showing up, too.
“If anybody comes in through these doors, I don’t let them get out hungry,” he said. “I’ll take care of them any which way I can.”