About This Blog

This blog features: neighborhood restaurants, nearby restaurants, downtown restaurants, Casa View Shopping Center, nearby shopping, Downtown shops.

I will first list places and my connections with them. For the spirit of completeness, I will then list other places, known to me but not visited. I choose not to list the unknown.

I like the section entitled Places I Wish I Had Visited.

My focus is places and locations which existed from 1953, when I moved to Dallas, until 1965, when I graduated from high school. This list will continue with my college years, until I turned 21. I left Dallas in 1969 and, as I did not return except to visit my parents until 1973, my memory of East Dallas ends at that time.

Some categories were easy to separate – restaurants and shopping. Some experiences are not so easy to categorize, but are still meaningful. They may be all lumped in together, and then teased out as other connections are made.

Music wise, we may have thought we were born of the “wrong generation.” I always thought the older generation (i.e. 3 to 4 years older than me) had a richer and deeper experience.

But we, the beginning of the Baby Boomer generation, had it best – stable family life, rising expectations for the middle class and parents who wanted to give so much to their children, which most did not have in their childhood. We were left to play and roam outdoors to make our own fun. We had the best toys and the best music.

And yet we lived in tumultuous times – the Cold War, Civil Rights, Integration and the Kennedy Assassination through the killings of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King.

Hopefully we came out as loving, caring, sharing adults whose experiences made us better people and gave us the ability to show appreciation and gratitude for the neighborhood and experiences which enriched us and our loved ones.

Tuesday, July 9, 2013

Restaurants – El Chico and El Fenix

The story of El Chico starts with a tamale stand at the Kaufman County Fair in 1926.  Adelaide “Maria” Cuellar made $300 at the fair.  Her sons provided background music on their band instruments.  Success prompted the family to open a café in Kaufman.

Maria Cuellar had married Macario Cuellar in Mexico.  They crossed the border and worked on ranches in small Texas towns.  When they settled in Kaufman, they were able to buy 100 acres.

The sons, affectionately called “Mama’s Boys,” were a team of five brothers – Willie, Frank, Gilbert, Alfred and Mack.  Some helped their parents at the restaurant, other branched out and started their own restaurant.  

Most served in the military when World War II broke out.

After the war, the brothers pooled their money and borrowed some more and opened the first El Chico in 1945 in the Oak Lawn area.  More restaurants came, and at one time they had the largest string of Mexican restaurants in the Southwest.


Growing up, I really couldn’t taste the difference between El Chico and El Fenix.  Today I like their fast-casual concept with delicious appetizers and tasty margaritas.  The restaurant was built on well-prepared food, pleasant service and strong family ties.
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