At Mija Barbecue in Cedar Hill, tacos tell the story of a family

Last fall, Mija Barbecue’s future looked desperately uncertain. The weekend operation in Cedar Hill had gained a following at Ash and Ember Brewing, but the brewery’s owners warned grillers Ryan and Bailey Siegler: Ash and Ember was closing. Mija needed to find a new home, fast.

The Sieglers initially bought a trailer, but Cedar Hill only allowed food trucks for special events. That rule changed this summer, but by then the couple was bringing Mijas barbecue tacos down the street to Railport Brewing Co. in Waxahachie. Business was booming.

“Things were really quiet in December,” Ryan says. “We thought we were going to have to close.” Then a call came: Would the Sieglers be interested in converting an old house near Cedar Hill’s town square into a full-time restaurant?

The people and the occasion couldn’t be more fitting. Bailey is a contractor with 10 years of restoration experience. She also had a Pinterest board full of ideas for her dream restaurant. So they set to work on the 1938 house. A historical plaque told them that only central heating and cooling had been installed in the last 85 years.

The Sieglers knew they couldn’t afford a long renovation with their meager savings from their trailer days, so they asked their community and church for help. The response was overwhelming. The new Mija Barbecue opened its doors less than four months after the Sieglers signed their lease. The house’s old living room and bedrooms are dining nooks, and the backyard is filled with picnic tables and lights. In less than a year, Mija went from a homeless pop-up to a neighborhood staple.

“It’s growing faster than we thought it would,” Ryan says. “It wasn’t a high-traffic area in the brewery, but we did well. We thought we had a chance outside the brewery. We expected similar sales, maybe less. (But when the place opened) we were inundated with old customers and people who thought we were brand new on day one. We had to hire so much staff, new people in the kitchen. I don’t think anyone expected we would be this busy.”

Mija’s specialty is Texas barbecue with Mexican flavors, usually in the form of tacos. Ryan describes himself as “very Texan,” and the restaurant displays a cleaver used by his great-grandfather, a World War II veteran who owned a butcher shop and smokehouse in Oak Cliff. Bailey’s father is from Mexico, and she spent her childhood visiting family across the border. After the couple married, Ryan began visiting Mexico to learn her family recipes, too.

Mija Barbecue is a tribute to the mixed-race family the Sieglers created. They don’t just do it for themselves; they want their children to see their mixed identities in the food.

“When we got married, we realized that we were pretty much what Texas had become,” Ryan says. “When we had kids, we talked about what culture they would identify with. In Texas, you don’t have to choose sides.”

“It’s been really important for my girls to be proud of who they are,” Bailey agrees. “Even though we’re mixed and it can be confusing, I want them to be proud of both sides.”

For Ryan, the biggest challenge as a grill master is capturing both his wife’s roots and his own. “How can I best represent those experiences and my wife’s culture without seeming like I’m trying to pass them off as my own?”

Right now, that means a menu full of hearty tacos, with Texas barbecue wrapped in each tortilla.

The Texan breakfast taco is a perfectly prepared titan of the genre. And I mean titan literally: It’s huge. For $8, it’s a very complete breakfast in and of itself. First, refried beans are spread on the tortilla. Then the cooks pounce on scrambled eggs and perfectly cooked breakfast potatoes. Peeking out from under the tender, chopped brisket is a layer of cheese that is the taco’s main attraction.

You’re asked to choose from Mijas’ three salsa options. The spiciest, a salsa verde, is my favorite. It’s plenty spicy, but has plenty of other flavors besides the heat, including a complementary sweetness. It’s the kind of salsa that catches you a little but invites you back for the next bite.

When I ask Ryan what goes into his salsa verde, it becomes clear what a skillful balancing act this spice is. “It’s a typical tomatillo salsa verde, but I use habanero and jalapeño peppers,” he says. “What makes it special is that I use a combination of pineapple juice and lime juice and a little avocado. I wanted it to be sweet up front and then the spiciness to come at a point where you want to take another bite.” I can confirm that.

Tacos are a hit at Mija at other meals too. When I was there around noon on a Friday, almost everyone in line was ordering their barbecue tacos. I ordered the Cedar Hill—pulled pork, salsa verde, pickled red onions—and understood why it’s so popular. Those dusty flour tortillas, which I bought at the local Tortillería La Nueva Puntada, are a big part of the appeal.

Frankly, my Cedar Hill taco looked like a shambles: salsa and avocado cream spilled everywhere (including elsewhere on my tray), grease oozing out of both ends. But the taco’s messiness is at least partly due to the fact that it’s so generously loaded with stuff: lots of tender pork, lots of salsa.

There are tasty sides, too. I enjoyed the creamy, slightly spicy coleslaw and pickled onions. The barbecue sauce has a good tart flavor. Bailey Siegler bakes the restaurant’s biscuits. In a rare, uncharacteristic moment, I didn’t order one, an oversight I’ll correct next time.

The low point of both my visits was a simple quarter-pound piece of brisket. The brisket had an earthy hue, like the dust of West Texas, had no noticeable smoke flavor, and contained a pearly lump of unprocessed fat. The outer edge, which barbecue fans call “bark,” was as soft as the rest. At least there was still a tortilla, a nice flavorful sauce, and more pickled onions so I could hide the meat in a taco. (The brisket in the breakfast taco on my first visit was noticeably better, including a flavorful bark.)

The brisket taco on the lunch menu, by the way, is served with salsa negra, avocado cream, and pickled red onions. It’s the first recipe Ryan developed, and Bailey likes to order her brisket chopped. Ryan also told me that next time I’ll have to try the quesabirria before my biscuit.

“The quesabirria taco is not a traditional quesabirria, and I did that on purpose,” he says. “I wanted to bring in the Tex-Mex feel. It’s a flour tortilla with chopped brisket instead of braised beef. The cheese makes it creamy on the inside.” The menu also includes elote, double cheeseburgers with jalapeño relish and a grilled birria cheese sandwich.

In some ways, Mija Barbecue is a long-standing Cedar Hill business, dating back to its first event in early 2019. Starting in September 2020, Mija moved into the brewery on weekends. But its permanent, year-round home has only been open for three months, and the long journey the Sieglers have taken to get here has made them all the more grateful to share their heritage in their tacos. As Bailey says, “Our community in Cedar Hill, our church family, and our families—they were all there when we needed them.”

Mija Barbecue, 406 W. Belt Line Rd., Cedar Hill