Fire destroyed Casita, but Dallas Tex-Mex staple is back open
Casita Tex-Mex Bar and Grill, a longtime restaurant near Northwest Highway and Central Expressway, is back open in Dallas of Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2022, after a fire.
It had been closed for 20 months, since Dec. 27, 2020, when an accidental fire ravaged the kitchen and sent flames flickering out of some windows. Investigators believe a tortilla chip warmer caused the fire, according to a Dallas Fire-Rescue report. No injuries were reported.
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Norma Valles points at smoke damage on a mural that survived a fire in December 2020 at her restaurant Casita in Dallas.
(Ben Torres / Special Contributor)
Co-owners Norma and Alfonso Valles were forced to gut the building and rebuild. She had just spent the nine months prior navigating the complexities of owning a restaurant during the coronavirus pandemic.
“All this effort, all this work, it was just up in smoke. You birthed a child and it was gone,” Norma Valles says.
“And it took a little while to gather myself up again.”
The Valles family has been involved with the restaurant since 2007. But this little restaurant “at the corner of nowhere and nowhere,” as the developer’s son describes its start in the 1960s, dates back 40 years prior as Casita Dominguez. It was run by restaurateur Pete Dominguez.
The building shares a parking lot with another long-time business, Henk’s European Deli & Black Forest Bakery, and sits in the shadow of the flagship Half Price Books. (A fun little historical nugget: The plot of land had an “impossibly difficult slope,” says Mark Albert, developer David Albert’s son. The elder Albert suggested smoothing out the plot of land with free dirt from the NorthPark Center excavation, which was taking place on the other side of the highway, in the ‘60s. It worked.)
David Albert, now deceased, always loved that little Tex-Mex restaurant, his son said. He took ownership of the restaurant in 2007, then sold it to the Valleses, who have operated it since.
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President George W. Bush ate at Casita in Dallas years ago, co-owner Normal Valles points out.
(Ben Torres / Special Contributor)
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The Rick’s Special at Casita in Dallas is two cheese enchiladas with chile con carne, topped with beef fajita meat.
(Ben Torres / Special Contributor)
For years, the Valles family served free lunch or dinner to veterans on the first Tuesday of the month at Casita. Norma Valles even created Veterans’ American Idol, where she’d invite regulars to perform a talent inside the restaurant. The First Tuesdays tradition will continue now that Casita is back open.
The menu is the same as it was before the fire, which Norma Valles says is a tribute to the dishes the long-time regulars loved. The Rick’s Special — cheese enchiladas with beef fajita meat on top — is a best-seller.
Many of the recipes date way back, to Dominguez’s time at the restaurant.
“We’ve been challenged with so many things,” Norma Valles says following the fire and the pandemic. “Fortunately for us, we’ve had so many customers who want to come and support the restaurant.”
Casita is at 5807 Blackwell St., Dallas. It reopened Aug. 30, 2022.