Photo courtesy of Herrera’s Oak Cliff
The wealth of Tex-Mex in Oak Cliff keeps giving.
The original Herrera’s Cafe, which was not in its original nor its secondary location, closed for good this week.
It was like we won the enchilada lottery when Herrera’s relocated from North Dallas to Sylvan Avenue in 2014.
The importance of this 51-year-old restaurant in Dallas has not been overstated. It is among the Tex-Mex restaurants in Dallas that legitimized the cuisine as its own thing that deserves some respect.
Its cheese enchiladas epitomize Tex-Mex and once garnered practically an ode in the New York Times.
“What I tasted for the first time was extraordinary: Cheese, meat and chili gravy all swirled together, encased in tortillas and buttressed by rice and refried beans,” the newspaper’s Joe Drape wrote in 2007.
“I’ve been hooked ever since, which has become a curse. It’s hard to be a Tex-Mex aficionado when you don’t live in Texas.”
And he didn’t even mention the bean soup amuse-bouche.
The original Herrera’s opened in a tiny space on Maple Avenue in 1971 and later moved to a cavernous location across the street.
The good news for our neighborhood is that Herrera’s Oak Cliff is still open on Illinois and Wright.
Various family members have taken the name and some of the recipes and spun off their own independent restaurants, and this is one of them.
Herrera’s Oak Cliff is open 11 a.m.-8:30 p.m. Wednesday-Sunday and closed Monday-Tuesday.
