The Oak Cliff restaurant is featured in the October Advocate, and even though it’s been around for almost 30 years, El Ranchito is packed almsot every day. It’s a favorite spot for family celebrations, and I didn’t know until I read our story that El Ranchito buys its cabrito from a farm in Weatherford.

But did you know that building was the original Sonny Bryan’s Smokehouse? Well, sort of. The second generation of Dallas’s barbecueing Bryans, William Jennings Bryan, opened a restaurant there in 1935.

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Bryan closed that restaurant after Oak Cliff went dry. In 1958, his son, William Jennings Bryan Jr., who was known as “Sonny” opened the first Sonny Bryan’s Smokehouse on Inwood.