Press

El Fenix Mexican Restaurant—the originator of Tex-Mex cuisine—has teamed up with Patrón to create a limited-edition margarita using a custom barrel of El Fenix PatrónÒ Barrel Select Reposado made specifically for its 100th anniversary.

With so many variations on this classic cocktail, where do you begin? Good news: There’s an app for that.

Downtown Dallas destination restaurant El Fenix began celebrating its 100th birthday in January. Today, we learned the year-long fête includes the potential for free food — $100 worth of it, to be exact — with an arty twist.

Dallas, TX  (RestaurantNews.com)  Very few restaurant concepts have the staying power to celebrate even a decade of service and this year, El Fenix Mexican Restaurant is celebrating its Centennial!

El Fenix may be turning 100 this year in Dallas, but boy, has the restaurant stayed current. In August 2018, as part of its year-long centenarian fiesta, all El Fenix restaurants will debut a new margarita featuring Topo Chico and a chile-lime rim made with the Mexican seasoning Tajín.

This week’s Lone Star is a culinary Adventure, celebrating a pioneer in the food we call TexMex. It’s a celebration 100 years in the making. One you can get involved in. We are headed to downtown Dallas and El Fenix restaurant.

Dallas-based El Fenix Restaurant is known as the home of Tex-Mex

To celebrate its centennial anniversary and National Margarita Day, El Fenix is offering $1 margaritas—frozen or on the rocks—every day in February!

Food for Fashion! El Fenix had the opportunity to participate in this event and it was a great time. Students had the opportunity to pursue their passion for the culinary arts in a unique way. Local designers created fashion made from food and restuarant supplies. The runway is where food and fashion meet!

The menu at El Fenix restaurants will soon feature recipes concocted by student chefs from the Academy of Culinary Arts and Hospitality at Irving ISD’s Singley Academy. The Mexican food restaurant selected tostada dish recipes created by seniors Juan Altamirano, William Perez, and Erick Rodriguez as the winner of the Kids Fit Menu Invitational.

In 1918—long before Chili’s, Chipotle, and Moe’s Southwest Grill took the concept nationwide—Tex-Mex food wasn’t being served in Texas, Mexico, or even the very restaurant operated by the creator of the now-ubiquitous cuisine. Now, the forefather of Tex-Mex restaurants is turning 100 years old.

Cheese enchiladas at El Fenix
For 99 years, this Tex-Mex plate has been synonymous with the word enchilada in Dallas. Wisconsin cheddar and diced onions fill corn tortillas that are topped with a luscious chili con carne for an ooey-gooey feast that includes refried beans and Mexican rice. Better still, the dish can be had every Wednesday for just $5.99.

Any 100th birthday bash deserves considerable thought. But it takes extra-special preparation when the celebration involves the international mecca of Tex-Mex.

Tex-Mex: There’s nothing that Big D does better than plates of enchiladas, fajitas, and glorious, glorious queso. You have to try the original, El Fenix, founded in Dallas in 1918.

Q: Where do you like to eat?

A: El Fenix Restaurant [In Dallas]. I had never eaten any Mexican food until I moved here, and I said. “Well I’m not Mexican, I’m not going to eat Mexican food’ But my wife took me, and now I’ve been addicted for the last 40 years.

Medical City Children’s Hospital and the Greater Dallas Restaurant Association (GRDA) have partnered with Texas ProStart to connect with culinary programs in high schools across North Texas to develop the Kids Fit Menus for local restaurants including On the Border, El Fenix, Top Golf and Snuffer’s.

When Mike Martinez opened a small restaurant in Big D in 1916, he began infusing his food to integrate Mexican flare into it. In 1918, he changed the name to El Fenix.

Businesses are saluting veterans and active-duty military personnel Saturday. They’re offering freebies and special discounts on Veterans Day to show their appreciation for all those who have sacrificed for their country.

El Fenix: Vets get a free meal from a special menu Saturday.

In honor of Halloween, the Mexican restaurant chain is serving up free ghost-shaped sopapillas Oct. 31. The complimentary deep-fried dessert is available upon request at all 22 El Fenix locations. One person per visit. Dine-in only. To find an El Fenix near you, visit www.elfenix.com.

El Fenix: Get $4.99 taco plates with two crispy or soft tacos at participating locations of the Texas-based chain with a coupon posted on its website. Print the coupon or show the digital coupon on your smartphone. One coupon is valid for up to 10 people in your party.

El Fenix’s salsa is named “Best Salsa” of 2017 by the Dallas Observer.

Well, actually, they’re $4.99 before tax and tip, but you get the gist. National Taco Day plates at El Fenix include two crispy or soft tacos with picadillo beef or chicken, served with rice and beans.

El Fenix Mexican Restaurant has indisputably claimed Dallasites’ hearts and appetites with its consistently delicious and affordable food. In fact, it’s so good that it recently celebrated its 99th year of operation! In a time where downtown Dallas restaurants come and go as tastes and trends change, El Fenix remains in its original location, which opened in 1918 (although additional restaurants have since been added). Today, its humble beginnings and rich history has earned it and iconic status in Dallas and is credited as “the original Tex-Mex.”

El Fenix restaurant near downtown Dallas is celebrating the 99th birthday by selling 99-cent cheese enchilada plates on Thursday, Sept. 14. (That’s one cent more than last year’s deal, and two cents more than the year before that. There’s a “99” theme, see, and that’s still one heck of a deal.)

Lucky for us, legendary Dallas Tex-Mex restaurant El Fenix shares a parking lot with the Perot! That makes it super easy to enjoy a delicious meal or afternoon pick-me-up before or after a visit to the museum. El Fenix margaritas have been named Best in Dallas many times, so we decided to give the original and strawberry versions a try. They definitely desere their accolades — they’re lightly sweet and just potent enough to be fun without giving you a headache!

El Fenix: The Mexican-food chain is doing a limited-time Hatch Chile Festival, and keeping it pretty basic: Hatch green chile & chicken enchiladas, queso blanco enchiladas, roasted Hatch queso blanco and a green-chile-infused margarita.

In 1911, Miguel Martinez left Mexico and settled in Dallas. Four years later he met and married Faustina Porras and together they had eight children. In 1916, he opened Martinez Cafe, which began serving what would become known as Tex-Mex by the time the restaurant changed names to El Fenix two years later.

For 99 years, this Tex-Mex plate has been synonymous with the word enchilada in Dallas. Wisconsin cheddar and diced onions fill corn tortillas that are topped with a luscious chili con carne for an ooey-gooey feast that includes refried beans and Mexican rice. Better still, the dish can be had every Wednesday for just $5.99.

It isn’t fancy. But it is traditional Tex-Mex, sold for low prices at a Dallas institution that’s been around for nearly 100 years. If you’ve never had Tex-Mex, El Fenix is a great place to start.

What happens when your enchilada dinner is served with such warmth and zest that you return to the restaurant anticipating not only the meal, but also the server?

That is how Lake Highland’s resident Roger Melton and his wife Sue feel about Rocky Mendez who has been waiting tables at El Fenix in Casa Linda for the past 17 years.

At El Fenix, the Frescas del Mar promotion runs from March 6 through April 30, offering customers a bit of the unexpected. Among the four limited-time items are Ceviche Fresco, an appetizer of marinated whitefish, tomatoes, red onions, cilantro and lime served with chips ($6.99). The same ceviche is menued as an entree salad ($10.49). For heartier appetites, there’s Seafood Diablo ($12.49), a fish stew enriched with potatoes, corn, squash and bell peppers, and grilled Saltillo Whitefish with a roasted tomato chili sauce ($11.49).

El Fenix Mexican Restaurants are celebrating National Margarita Day for an entire week. All day, every day, from Friday, Feb. 17, to Sunday, Feb. 26, El Fenix its Original Margaritas (rocks or frozen) for just $2.99.

From Feb. 10 through 19, El Fenix will offer a $24.95 “Lover’s Special” consisting of an appetizer combo (guac, queso, chips and salsa) and fajitas for two. (You’ll need a coupon, which will be available beginning Feb. 10 at elfenix.com/offers.) No matter what entree you order on Valentine’s Day itself, you’ll get a heart-shaped sopapilla for dessert. Awww …

And what if we were to ask the same question for Dallas? What establishments would make our short list?

For its contributions to Tex Mex, El Fenix…

On Tuesday, Oct. 4, El Fenix invites taco lovers everywhere to come in and create their own Taco Plate for just $4.98. Choose a soft or crispy taco shell to stuff with either beef picadillo or seasoned chicken, and enjoy it with a generous side of rice and beans.

Taco bout a delicious offer!

There’s nothing that Big D does better than plates of enchiladas, fajitas, and glorious, glorious queso. Head to Mia’s Tex-Mex for a locally beloved plate of brisket tacos (don’t forget the gravy!) or try the original, El Fenix, founded in Dallas in 1910.

Tex-Mex may be one of the Lone Star State’s greatest contributions to American dining. Just ask anyone who’s moved out of state: A side of queso is not the same delicious bowl of liquid cheese in other parts of the country.

But where did this offshoot of Mexican cuisine originate? Many credit Dallas-born chain El Fenix.

Nothing tops off a fantastic Tex-Mex meal than a plate full of steaming-hot sopapillas, and this legendary local legend has perfected the fried-dough dessert.

There were cries of foul when El Fenix was sold in 2008 to an investment group after 90 years as a family-owned business, but the legacy of the Dallas-based restaurant chain remains intact. El Fenix perfected the Tex-Mex combo plate and helped popularize the food throughout the state and eventually the nation as chains popped up in other cities and emulated the El Fenix model. Generations of families have dined at El Fenix since it was first opened in 1918 by Mike Martinez and return regularly for heart-melting portions of cheese enchiladas and tortilla chips that are perfectly crunchy down to the last crumb.