Photo courtesy of Alicia Quintans
The 72-year-old El Fenix restaurant on Colorado Boulevard was demolished this week to make way for eight-story apartments.
The restaurant was built in 1948, the Martinez family’s second El Fenix in Dallas after the original, which is still standing on McKinney Avenue.
El Fenix at 120 E. Colorado Blvd. was a center of civic life in Oak Cliff for decades, where schools and clubs held luncheons and banquets. It was architecturally significant for its Spanish style masonry and architecture.
It made The Advocate’s list of at-risk architecture in 2018, and Preservation Dallas named it among its most endangered historic places earlier this month.
The Martinez family sold El Fenix to a restaurant group more than a decade ago, and that company, Local Favorite Restaurant Group, sold the Colorado location to a developer. The group also owns the site of the Polar Bear Ice Cream stand on Zang, which recently suffered demolition by neglect.
A San Antonio-based developer, Kairoi Residential, has plans to build an eight-story apartment complex on the site.
Check out these photos, courtesy of Alicia Quintans.
