Ask a room full of Dallas people where they ate as kids and you will hear the same dozen names. Some of those places are gone. A surprising number are not.
Your grandparents may have ordered these plates on a first date. Your parents probably bribed you with them after a dentist appointment. The dining rooms have been repainted and a few have changed hands, but the food would still look familiar to anyone who sat down there in 1965.
Ten of them, oldest first.
El Fenix goes back to 1918. Miguel “Mike” Martinez was washing dishes at the Oriental Hotel downtown when he opened a little café in the front room of his house. It served mostly American food at first.
Once he renamed it El Fenix and put frijoles, tamales, and chili con carne on the menu, Dallas lined up, and a big piece of what the country now calls Tex-Mex took shape in that kitchen. The Martinez family kept it until 2008. It is still considered the oldest Mexican restaurant chain in the United States.
The move is the cheese enchilada plate on a Wednesday, when the dinner special brings two cheese enchiladas with rice and refried beans. The flagship at 1601 McKinney Ave. is where the lunch line has been forming for decades.
In Fort Worth, Paris Coffee Shop has been open since 1926. Vic Paris started it, the Smith family took it over soon after and ran it for the better part of a century, and in 1974 it moved into an old Safeway building at 704 W. Magnolia Ave.
When Lou Lambert, Chris Reale, and Mark Harris bought it from Mike Smith, they renovated using old photographs and reopened in 2022. They were smart enough to leave the pie case alone. Coconut meringue is the classic. At lunch, the chicken and dumplings earn a spot before dessert.
Joe T. Garcia’s opened on the Fourth of July in 1935, in part of Joe T. and Jessie Garcia’s home on the North Side. Sixteen people could eat there at once. Today the place covers most of a block at 2201 N. Commerce St., seats more than 1,000, and the patio where families wait for a table used to be the Garcias’ backyard.
Dinner has long come down to two choices, enchiladas or fajitas. Take the family-style enchilada dinner, which brings two nachos, two enchiladas, two beef tacos, rice, and beans. Weekend lines can be long, so go early.
Campisi’s started in 1946 in the back of a bar called the Idle Hour, at Knox and McKinney, where Carlo “Papa” Campisi and his family began making pizza. Four years later they moved into a Mockingbird Lane nightclub called the Egyptian Lounge.
Money was tight, so instead of buying a new sign they pulled off “Lounge” and put up “Restaurant.” That sign still hangs at the Egyptian, 5610 E. Mockingbird Lane. Get the thin-crust pizza and an order of Joe’s Famous Garlic Toast.
The Lovers Lane location has been dark since a fire in late 2025, and the family plans to reopen on Inwood Road in early 2027. David Campisi told CraveDFW all about the move and what comes next this summer.
Norma’s Cafe has sat on West Davis Street in Oak Cliff since 1956. Back then the road was Highway 80, and the diner fed people driving across Texas until the interstate took the traffic somewhere else. Norma Manis made it famous, sold it in 1986, and later opened Mama’s Daughters’ Diner.
The original, at 1123 W. Davis St., still does the chicken fried steak, meatloaf, and chicken and dressing that regulars grew up on. Whatever you eat, leave room for a slice of Mile-High lemon meringue pie. It’s the slice people drive across town for.
Sonny Bryan’s Smokehouse opened at 2202 Inwood Road in 1958, but barbecue was in the family long before that. Sonny’s grandfather Elias Bryan opened his first Dallas smokehouse in 1910, and his father, Red, ran his own smokehouse in Oak Cliff.
Sonny sold the business in 1989, and there have been changes since. The old school desks in the Inwood dining room are still there, though, and these days the place never closes, so you can eat off them at 3 a.m. if the craving hits. Get the sliced brisket and a basket of onion rings, and pour the sauce, which still comes heated in beer bottles.
Over in Fort Worth, Angelo George opened Angelo’s Bar-B-Que on St. Patrick’s Day, 1958, at 2533 White Settlement Road. A stuffed bear has greeted diners inside the door for years, the walls look like a hunting cabin, and the meat comes off hickory. It’s also one of the few barbecue joints in Texas that will put your sandwich on rye.
The chopped beef sandwich is the order, or a brisket and rib plate if you’re hungry. Either way, have a beer in a frosted schooner. Those heavy glass mugs come straight out of the freezer, and they are half the reason people have been driving to White Settlement Road for almost 70 years.
Karl and Ria Kuby came from a long line of German sausage makers. On Feb. 13, 1961, they opened Kuby’s Sausage House at 6601 Snider Plaza, across from SMU, with a small meat market and a lunch counter with a few stools.
In 1971 the tuxedo shop next door moved out, because its suits had started smelling like sausage, and Kuby’s took over the space. Their son, Karl Jr., runs it now. Sit down for the wurst teller, a sausage plate with house sauerkraut, German potato salad, and red cabbage, then walk out through the market with something for later.
Jack Keller had worked at the Pig Stand drive-ins before he went into business for himself. Keller’s Drive-In opened on East Northwest Highway on Aug. 13, 1965, and it still works the old way. Pull in, flash your headlights, and a carhop walks out to your window. There’s no website and no social media to check first. Keller’s has never needed either.
The No. 5 special is what everybody orders, dressed with lettuce, tomato, and a Thousand Island-style special sauce on a grilled poppy-seed bun. Get tots with it, and a beer if you’re not driving far. It’s still one of the best cheap meals in Dallas.
Celebration opened in 1971 in a few old houses at 4503 W. Lovers Lane, between Inwood Road and Lemmon Avenue. It was cooking local food long before anybody in Dallas was using the phrase farm-to-table.
The bread basket still shows up first, with yeast rolls, muffins, and cornbread baked in house. Then comes the pot roast, which has been on the menu since the beginning. Sides go in the middle of the table for everyone, and they will bring seconds on most entrées. Nobody leaves Celebration hungry.
All ten are still open, and together they have been cooking for more than 700 years. If there is one on this list you have never tried, go this week. Better yet, take somebody young with you.
