Editor’s Note: Airport Experience News launched the ACDBE of Distinction awards in 2024 to honor small, Airport Concessions Disadvantaged Business Enterprises-certified firms that excel in their field. The program continues this year. Cariño Cortez of Cortez Hospitality is among four winners for 2026.
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When Cariño Cortez’s grandfather helped found Mi Tierra Café in downtown San Antonio, he was planting a flag for a family and for a city. More than 80 years later, his granddaughter is still tending that ground, now as president of Cortez Hospitality and joint venture partner for Paradies Lagardère at San Antonio International Airport (SAT).
Cortez grew up inside Mi Tierra, surrounded by the aromas, flavors and stories embedded in traditional recipes. She carried that sensibility into a business degree, then to the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park. From there, she joined multiple Michelin-starred kitchens in New York and Chicago where she developed the rigor that fine dining demands. Then she went back home.
She founded Cortez Hospitality in 2015 and by 2019 had brought the company into SAT, where she now operates 16 units in partnership with Paradies Lagardère. Three generations in the restaurant business have a way of clarifying what you are actually trying to do. The airport, it turns out, is just the largest room she’s ever had to navigate.
When Cortez first engaged with an RFP in 2018, she approached it by asking questions and paying close attention to who answered them. What distinguished Paradies Lagardère in that process was their openness. “Everyone there was accessible and willing to answer questions,” Cortez says. “It didn’t feel corporate and [instead] more like a strong partnership.” She was also looking for alignment in a partner, one whose identity could hold up against her own family name.
“Paradies holds the same values I hold in business: care for the community, care for their team, doing things the right way, and hospitality are top of their list,” she says. “Those were all big things for me because in my community I’ve got a background and identity to uphold and my partner needs to reflect those same values.”
Mark Fletcher, director of business development for Paradies Lagardère, has watched that alignment play out. “She brings a thoughtful, community-first perspective that ensures our programs are authentic, locally relevant, and reflective of San Antonio’s culture,” he says. “Together, we’ve curated offerings that resonate with local travelers and visitors alike.”
Since that initial partnership, Cortez Hospitality has helped double the number of retail and food and beverage units at SAT through successive RFP wins. When it comes to working with other prime concessionaires, Cortez is content where she is. When you have found the right partner, she says, you stay.
The Front Door
Her family’s business has always lived in downtown San Antonio, at what Cortez describes as the front door to the city. “It’s where tourists come, or if you’re a local, it always feels like you’re coming home,” she says. That sense of arrival, of a place that should tell a story, is exactly what she wanted to bring into the terminal.
The portfolio reflects that vision. Merit Coffee, Smoke Shack, Feliz Modern, Whataburger and the Spurs Store are among the San Antonio brands now operating inside SAT. Several have grown their broader market presence as a direct result of the airport platform.
The ripple effect is part of the point. The city of San Antonio recognized that stewardship by granting Cortez Hospitality use of the “Military City, USA” trademark, a closely protected civic designation, to anchor a concept at SAT. City leaders showed up to the grand opening, which illustrates the institutional confidence Cortez has earned.
The Next Frontier
Expanding to other airports throughout Texas is a primary goal for the future of Cortez Hospitality, and the company expects to learn by the end of 2026 whether it has been awarded concession space in the new SAT terminal. Fletcher anticipates scaled growth ahead, pointing to Cortez’s entrepreneurial mindset and commitment to excellence as the engine behind it.
“Cariño has consistently demonstrated the ability to deliver best-in-class programs while staying true to the local community,” he says, “and we’re excited about what the future holds.” For Cortez, the ambition is inseparable from the obligation. More than 80 years of family history in San Antonio has a way of making that clear.
