Eddie Cervantes has been feeding Dallas Tex-Mex since 1981. He opened Primo’s Bar & Grill on McKinney Avenue in 1986 and built it into one of the most loved Tex-Mex cantinas the city has ever had — where locals, chefs, and the occasional celebrity would end up on a Tuesday night over meltdown margaritas and a bowl of queso that nobody wanted to stop eating. Primo’s ran for years. People still bring it up.
After Primo’s he opened E-Bar. After E-Bar he opened
at 2018 Greenville Avenue on Lowest Greenville in 2021, and the people who had been following him since the Primo’s days showed up. A second location, Eddie’s Cocina & Cantina at 5622 Lemmon Avenue, has since opened in the former El Fenix space near Park Cities — a neighborhood that had been without a proper Tex-Mex room since El Fenix closed in 2020 and was not quiet about it. Eddie heard them.
The Greenville location is the original and it has the feel of a place that was built for the neighborhood rather than at it. The room is small and casual, the bar is the center of gravity, and the patio out front is where you want to be on a warm evening on Lowest Greenville with a frozen margarita and nowhere particular to be. It is not trying to impress anyone and it does not need to. The food takes care of that.
Start with the Loaded Queso. It is the number one seller for a reason — a generous bowl of smooth, properly seasoned queso topped with seasoned ground beef, sour cream, and guacamole, served with chips that are good enough to eat on their own. This is the queso that built the reputation, the direct descendant of what Eddie was doing at Primo’s, and it has not been messed with. Order it first and do not feel bad about finishing it before anything else arrives.
The crispy ground beef tacos are the other thing regulars come back for. Old-school, fried shells, properly seasoned beef, the kind of taco that Dallas Tex-Mex was built on before everything became a street taco. They are not trendy and that is the whole point. The flautas hit the same note — crispy, tight, served with guacamole and sour cream. The fajitas arrive the way fajitas are supposed to arrive, sizzling loud enough to turn heads, with the smell of the char reaching you before the plate does. The brisket nachos are worth knowing about — loaded, smoky, the elote on the cob alongside them is as good as anything you will find at a dedicated street corn operation. The chile rellenos are the sleeper on the menu, a roasted poblano stuffed and sauced, the kind of dish that disappears fast at the table.
Save room for the flan. Eddie’s version is one of the better ones on any Tex-Mex menu in Dallas — silky, properly caramelized, not too sweet. It has its own following among regulars who specifically save stomach space for it.
The Meltdown Margarita is the drink. It came with Eddie from the Primo’s days and it has traveled with him to every restaurant since. Strong, cold, and exactly the right amount of everything. The frozen version is what the patio was built around. Happy hour runs weekdays from 3 to 6 p.m. with half off a full order of nachos or quesadillas and $2 off the Meltdown and original rocks or frozen margaritas. That is a good deal on a Thursday afternoon.
Cervantes has been doing this for more than four decades and it shows — not in the sense that anything feels dated, but in the sense that every decision in the room comes from someone who knows exactly what they are doing and has known for a long time. The food is made fresh daily from scratch. The queso is always right. The margaritas are always strong. On Lowest Greenville, that is its own kind of achievement.
Eddie’s Tex-Mex Cocina is open Monday through Thursday 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., Friday and Saturday 11 a.m. to 11 p.m., and Sunday 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Brunch runs Saturday and Sunday 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. More at eddiestexmex.com.
