El Centro

Amber Campagna is Deep Ellum Royalty and a Boundless Musical Spirit

As you've recently read in DC9, Amber Campagna's family is practically the subject of a new documentary on fallen Dallas musician Frankie Campagna Jr.'s local punk assembly, Spector 45. We got a chance to know Frankie Jr. pretty well here at DC9 over the years, as well as his father, Kettle Art Stud ... More >>

Interview with Sue and Marc Cassel About Their Storied Culinary Careers and New Spot, 20 Feet Seafood Joint

Sue and Marc Cassel opened their quaint new spot, 20 Feet Seafood Joint, just last week. Neighbors of Good 2 Go Tacos and Goodfriend, it's a well-played parlay in East Dallas dining. Sue and Marc have spent time at many notable area restaurants, like Star Canyon, Hotel Zaza and Park and they were pa ... More >>

A Dallas County Community College Official Was Fired for Giving Scholarships to Herself

When Minnie K. Patton wrote her will, she left a portion of her estate to the Dallas County Community College District Foundation to create a scholarship in her name. She'd grown up poor and uneducated in rural Oklahoma and wanted to give students the shot at upward mobility that she wouldn't have h ... More >>

Jeana Johnson and Colleen O'Hare of Acme F&B Talk Gas Station Kitchens, Pyles' Charisma

If we considered all the Dallas restaurants that Jeana Johnson, Colleen O'Hare and Norm Grimm have worked in and made a connect-the-dot style map, it would be an overly complicated, yet highly impressive sketch of "six degrees of Kevin Bacon." I bet Bacon really is in there at some point. There's so ... More >>

The Kessler's Melissa Hennings Tends Bar and Shoots Your Favorite Bands

See also: Kessler front-of-house man Paul Quigg finds a niche in Oak Cliff Melissa Davis Hennings stumbled into photography, really: Her first shot was The Black Keys. But taking photos of local bands isn't how she makes ends meet. She's the bar manager at The Kessler, an ideal gig for someone with ... More >>

Parigi's Janice Provost, Out of the Corporate Fire and into the Sauteeing Pan

Parigi's Janice Provost.​This week, Three-Course Meal catches up with Janice Provost, chef/owner of Parigi Restaurant. Who are you? I'm 42. I grew up in a suburb of Houston on what my mom called Neal's Mini Farm. We had ducks, geese, chickens, rabbits, honey bees and a horse named Ginger. ... More >>

Leave Your Tie at Home or Munch a Cupcake for Charity

​ This week, forgo the tie and stop in for a cupcake. Don't feel bad about being too trendy -- or maybe too late on a trend -- it's all for charity. Read on. The Event: No Tie Dinner and Dessert Party The Cause: AIDS Services of Dallas When you get home from the office Friday, hang your tie o ... More >>

Plan Ahead: Streetcar Town Hall in Two Weeks

​No doubt City Hall will send out a release sooner or later, or post it to the City Secretary's open-meetings page, but we like to plan ahead. So, in case you missed the notice -- buried in tiny type at the bottom of Page 4B in the morning paper, right next to the El Centro ad -- there's a public ... More >>

Whatever Happened to Dallas' Restaurant Menus?

Researching this week's feature story on the Dallas dining scene gave me the chance to visit the archives of the Dallas Public Library, where I spent hours immersed in dozens of old community cookbooks uncovered by Texas/Dallas History Department manager Carol Roark - who would qualify for a dedicat ... More >>

Homesick Restaurants: How Dallas Became a Dining Nowhereville.

Julia Lopez: Smart, Simple Cooking Needs No Translation

La Duni​It's a very cold Monday night when I go to La Duni on Oak Lawn to visit with their corporate chef, 37-year-old Julia Lopez. Horse-drawn carriages roll by outside and almost all of the tables inside are filled with large parties of revelers. 'Tis the season and all. Warm, freshly-made ... More >>

Landmark Commission Finally Decides That Owners of 807 Elm Street Can Raze the Building

Justin Terveen​Speaking of demolitions ...Back in September we wondered whether 807 Elm Street's days were numbered. Park Cities Bank, which owns the building, had been trying to sell it for years but could find no takers. Said attorney Steve Metzger, repping PCB Properties, that was for one very ... More >>

How Safe is 807 Elm Street? One Structural Engineer Says It's "Distressed" Beyond Rescue.

Inside 807 Elm Street from documents submitted to the Landmark Commission​Aside from 807 Elm Street, there were a handful of other items of note on the Landmark Commission's agenda Monday -- like this proposed plaque for the Cotton Bowl, or a more detailed look at Jack Matthews's plans for a bouti ... More >>

Vegans Protest Downtown McDonald's; Voice Opposition to the Egg McMuffin

​The newest McDonald's opened today in the West End in a fury of scampering commuters, El Centro students seeking to get amped up on coffee before class and Eddie Garza whose Dallas Mercy for Animals staged a protest.Remember Eddie Garza: He wrote the Vegan Guy for City of Ate. Being a vegan and ... More >>

Dallas Architect Takes to Craigslist to Find Partners Interested in Rehabbing 807 Elm

Justin Terveen​I've left a few messages today for Taylor Burns, the officer at Park Cities Bank charged with tending to 807 Elm Street. As I noted Monday, PCB, which got the property in foreclosure, would like to raze the 85-year-old building sitting in a parking lot across from El Centro, though ... More >>

Is This the End for 807 Elm Street?

Justin Terveen​That's 807 Elm Street at right, captured last month in a photo taken by our old pal Justin Terveen. Built in 1925, the building occupies 20,025 square feet in a parking lot between N. Austin and N. Lamar Streets facing El Centro. It was, once, among the assemblage of buildings known ... More >>

How Affordable Is Downtown Dallas Housing? We Send Our Intern to Find Out.

Photos by Elliot Kaiser​Note from Jim: In the last week of April I asked the city to tell me how many guaranteed low-income housing units are available in downtown Dallas. There should be lots of them by now -a a couple thousand by some estimates -- because over the decades, the city has used hu ... More >>

Pop The Hood

Breezeway: El Centro Wants to Put Wind Turbines on Top of Old Sangers Building

View Larger MapThose Landmark Commission meeting agendas are full of interesting hints -- like, oh, that green house the State Fair of Texas wants to build in Fair Park. Or, now, this vague note concerning the installation of 21 wind turbines on the rooftop of 801 Main Street. We should have more ab ... More >>

Veggie Guy: Good 2 Go Taco

​Omnivores often ask me why I've chosen to live a vegan lifestyle in Dallas. They're always trying to ship me off to some other city like Austin. But why would I wanna leave? I love Dallas. Plus, vegans shouldn't have to relocate just because another place might seem more fitting. I mean, we don' ... More >>

Watson + Young = Exhibition

If the Dallas business establishment has its way with DART’s second rail line for downtown, forget about a booming metropolis.

As Downtown Struggles Back To Life, It’s Survival Of The Fittest For Urban Pioneers

If Nothing Else, Every Day I Drive By the Texas State Three-Dimensional Artist's Work

Say what you will about Eliseo Garcia's sculpture in front of the Walnut Hill Lane firehouse, but he's the official state "three-dimensional artist" for 2009, so there.Last December, we directed your attention to the publicly funded sculptures dropped in front of Fire Station No. 35 near the Marsh-W ... More >>

At West Dallas Luncheon, Optimism, a Hotel Pitch ... and Talk of a Water Sports Park

Alexa SchirtzingerMayor Tom at the West Dallas Chamber of Commerce's annual "State of the West" luncheon yesterdayAt the West Dallas Chamber of Commerce's annual "State of the West" luncheon yesterday, nearly 200 people filled a sunny room at the Lake West YMCA to hear about the future of West Dalla ... More >>

10 Questions: Randall Copeland

Hard at work in his stint at BolsaThe chef and co-owner of Ava, the new and much talked about Rockwall destination, got his start waiting tables right after high school. But it was his decision to enter El Centro's culinary program that really set things in motion.From there, the Dallas native worke ... More >>

Toque In Hand

Want to help a good thing get even better?We recently wrote about the phenomenal lunches and dinners provided by aspiring chefs of El Centro College's culinary arts program. Still, the school's kitchen could use a little help. And it's getting it from a few of its famous friends.From 4 to 7 p.m., M ... More >>

Wall to Wall

Take a stroll through the Dallas arts scene

On the Block

These are the people in your neighborhood

Ghoul Crazy

Handsome Frankenstein at Dallas Children's Theater; Cargo troupe takes Dracula down for the count

Skipping School

Top chefs can spend 30 grand on school or just work their way up

Tongue-tied

Gringo Lingo gripes

Letters

No, you take him; Scenic Huntsville; Hell's grannies; Not us; Fair market; Blame it on Bossa Nova

Taming Cowtown

The Basses put the 'fort' back in Fort Worth and bankroll a restaurateur's paradise

Card sharp

Twenty years without bluffing at Poor David's Pub

Daddy dearest

As Michael Irvin tries to scrub his image, it just gets weirder and weirder

Dueling Virgins

Competing shows offer contrasting visions of a Catholic icon

Goodbye, Old World

Juniper sheds its French identity for something suspiciously American