A little spot with a big name.
Gastonia mornings start slow along South New Hope Road — but by 7 a.m. sharp, the OPEN sign is on and the doors are unlocked at Tasty.
“Mommy, can you make me something tasty for dinner?”
— Enzo, who named the restaurant (and still gives every meal a thumbs-up)
From Agave to Tasty.
The idea took root in the fall of 2023, when the team behind Agave Mexican Restaurant — chef Ana Zarate, her husband Ambi Acosta, and business partner Nathaniel “Nate” Manun — decided Gaston County deserved a menu built around nutritious, low-carb options that still taste like comfort food, served all day long. They found their home at 3826 South New Hope Road, and by late November 2023, Tasty was open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, six days a week.
The name came from one of the smallest members of the family. Ana and Ambi's son, Enzo, used to come home from school asking for “something tasty” — one of his favorites was a burger he called exactly that. Today the menu carries a Big Tasty Burger of its own.
The early framework — clean ingredients, salad bowls, grilled proteins — never disappeared, but the menu has widened over the years to make room for indulgence and a Chef's Weekly Creation. Today Tasty is open Monday through Saturday, 7 a.m. to 8 p.m., with breakfast served all day.
Breakfast special · 7–9 AM$9.35
Anything in the breakfast category, side included.
Lunch special · 11 AM–2 PM
Your pick of two: salads, burgers, or soup.
The long way, on purpose.
The philosophy has always been clean, healthy eating — and the kitchen lives up to it by going the long way instead of taking shortcuts. Everything is bought fresh, starting with the fruit and vegetables. Vinaigrettes, syrups, and dressings are all homemade, and proteins and vegetables are grilled with olive oil.
There's no time limit on breakfast, lunch, or dinner: by 7 a.m. the whole menu is on offer. Breakfast for dinner? No problem. Dinner for breakfast? You got it. From the moment the kitchen opens it's turning out thick-cut, preservative-free brioche French toast with homemade sweet cream and fresh fruit, the Farm Omelette, and a breakfast burrito wrapped in a low-carb tortilla. Later come the stuffed avocado, the fried fish sandwich, rotisserie chicken, Cajun Pasta, Salmon Wrap, and Steak with Pasilla Cream.
Every week, Chef Ana cooks a dish that isn't on the menu — and regulars follow the restaurant's page just to see what she's come up with. Many of her creations earned permanent spots at customers' request: the Ultimate Shrimp Wrap, the Spicy Garlic Bowl, the Roasted Sweet Potato Bowl. And when Saltwater Market brings in a fresh catch from their Selina Grace boat, it lands in the kitchen fast — one wild-caught grouper became her “Dive Fish Tacos,” which sold out multiple times and still get asked about.
Coffee, from scratch.
Every drink starts with a freshly brewed double shot and a rotation of house-made syrups. The mocha latte gets house-made chocolate sauce with unrefined sugar, the chai comes dusted with cinnamon, and there's a ceremonial matcha for anyone skipping espresso altogether. Simple, made-from-scratch ingredients are the whole idea.
Something sweet, made by hand.
No matter how the day unfolds, it tends to end the same way — with something sweet, made from scratch by Chef Ana herself. Her Tres leches cake is the flagship: soaked through, never cloying. The kitchen knows it needs to be ready by mid-morning, because someone always asks for it early.
The dessert case rotates with homemade cakes, cake rolls, gluten-free desserts, muffins, cookies, and cheesecake bites — nothing shipped in, nothing from a box.
Built by neighbors.
Walk in on any given morning and you'll notice it before you ever see a menu: the servers know how the regulars take their coffee. On slow mornings, a stampede of “Mini Spartans” from nearby Gaston Day School storms through the door demanding French toast and cupcakes in the same breath — and the staff always seems to have both ready.
That instinct traces back to Agave, where the family built its name on showing up — donating meals to local nonprofits, supporting teachers, hosting field trips. And Tasty itself wasn't built by a corporation or a group of investors. It was built with the help of neighbors who are still regular customers today.
Fresh catch
Saltwater Market
Supplies the wild-caught shrimp and fish used every day, straight off their Selina Grace boat — and has partnered on several of Tasty's signature wine dinners.
Farris Fab · 3keys
Bryan Farris
Helped design and build the wine wall, then introduced the team to the boutique wineries that fill it through his wine distribution company, 3keys.
Heavy lifting
Chuck Hancock
Whenever muscle and experience were needed — moving a new commercial oven into place, installing wine coolers — Chuck stepped in.
They aren't just suppliers and contractors — they're customers. They celebrate birthdays here, attend the wine dinners, stop by for breakfast. A local realtor once called Tasty a “culinary gem” of Gaston County — not because of anything flashy, but because it feels like the kind of place that remembers your order and asks about your day.
We serve Gastonia and everyone who makes the drive: Belmont, Mount Holly, Cramerton, Bessemer City, Clover, Lake Wylie. If this county is home to you, this table is yours.
Boutique wines. Serious bourbon.
Over 200 bottles of boutique wine at retail pricing, with no corkage fee. It's a deliberate choice: Tasty only buys wines that reflect its own values — small producers over the mass-market labels already stocked at every grocery store in town. Some winemakers print their personal cell numbers right on the label so guests can call with questions; others list the exact number of cases produced.
On the bourbon side: over 60 bottles, from everyday favorites to some of the hardest-to-find pours around — George T. Stagg, Michter's Rye, Russell's Reserve 13 Year. Prices are per 2-ounce pour, and 1-ounce pours are half price — a low-commitment way to compare rare bottles side by side.
The wine dinners.
They started almost by accident. The very first one, held on a whim less than a year after Tasty opened, sold out before the restaurant had even gotten around to announcing it. It became a recurring fixture: four-to-five course meals paired with wines from makers like Patrick Sullivan of Grey Stack, Kramer Wines, FullDraw, Cocqurel, and Trujilos.
From there the ambition grew into the ticketed Saturday Night Wine Dinner — for the debut, Chef Ana crafted a six-course Mexican dining experience, each course paired with a wine sourced from around the world. When the AC failed the night before, mid-heat-wave, the team didn't push through and risk the evening — they moved it back a full week and told every ticket-holder to call and ask for Nate or Ambi personally. The rescheduled dinner sold out again.