Texas’ first Cantina Laredo, a Tex-Mex restaurant that started in Addison 42 years ago, closed Aug. 2, 2026
The North Texas-born restaurant has three locations remaining in Texas: in Frisco, at Dallas Love Field and at DFW International Airport. Cantina Laredo continues to sell fajitas, enchiladas and tacos at restaurants in Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Minnesota, Missouri and Virginia
An executive at Cantina Laredo’s parent company, Consolidated Restaurant Operations, confirmed the closure of the original restaurant and said it shuttered because the company was unable to reach a lease agreement. “Rent would have risen to the point that the restaurant would be unprofitable,” wrote Bill Watson, vice president of marketing, in an email
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The Dallas-based company also owns steakhouses III Forks and Silver Fox, Luckys diner and the Tex-Mex chain El Chico.
Watson wrote he is “saddened by the need to close the original Cantina Laredo.”
Dallas history
Cantina Laredo was created by Texas restaurateur Gilbert Cuellar Jr., whose family founded El Chico nearly 100 years ago
Cuellar told The Dallas Morning News he opened Cantina Laredo in 1984, inspired by a bus trip he took to Monterrey, Mexico — and following instructions from his dad, who tasked him with creating a new restaurant in the 1980s. As the story goes, before the bus crossed the Rio Grande, it stopped in Laredo, and Cuellar ate Mexican food and drank Ramos gin fizz cocktails at a legendary restaurant called Cadillac Bar
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Cuellar took a lot of inspiration from that restaurant, he said, even naming Cantina Laredo after the bar, or cantina, he visited in that Texas border town.
Early menus featured cabrito, oysters on the half shell and fajitas. The Cuellars sold their ownership in Cantina Laredo decades ago, but Gilbert still feels a closeness to the restaurant he started in Addison, he said in an interview with The News two days after the closure
Cantina Laredo was centrally located on Belt Line Road in Addison, notable for the north-of-Dallas town that boasts a large number of restaurants — over 180, according to the Addison website
Amber Patterson, the town of Addison’s tourism manager, remembers the restaurant as “a great partner, consistently embracing opportunities to participate in special events, creating excitement and helping make Addison a special place for both residents and visitors,” she said in an email
Watson, however, wrote in an email that its location just off the major Addison roadway had “limited visibility.”
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Though some of Addison’s eateries have been open for decades, like The Magic Time Machine (1979) and Nate’s Seafood (1988), Cantina Laredo was older. Addison’s longest-running restaurant is now Mr. Sushi, at 42 years old, matching the number of years Cantina Laredo was open. (Arthur’s Steakhouse is another longtimer and dates back to the 1940s, but it didn’t arrive in Addison until the 2000s, according to a town spokesperson.)
In the 1980s, Cantina Laredo delivered “some of the best Mexican food” in the area with its menu of tortilla soup and chicken fajitas and was “one of the most cheerful restaurants in town,” The News wrote in a 1987 review. The food was described as “outstanding.”
In 2001, another restaurant critic said the grilled quail is “to die for” while the fajitas were “ordinary.”
Remembering the original in Addison
After Cantina Laredo closed in Addison, Facebook commenters shared wistful memories. One customer enjoyed a first date there in 1992 with the man who would become her husband. Another named her favorite server — Fernando — in the 30 years she visited
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Many shared their love for the apple pie, an unexpected yet beloved addition to the Mexican restaurant’s menu
As Cantina Laredo grew across Dallas-Fort Worth and beyond, Cuellar said the Addison location’s sales were once used as the benchmark for the others
“I loved that restaurant,” he said. “I was glad it retained its original identity.”
Cantina Laredo was at 4546 Belt Line Road, Dallas. It closed Aug. 2, 2026.
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Original story updated at 5:35 p.m. Aug. 4, 2026 with comments from an executive at Consolidated Restaurant Operations, which owns Cantina Laredo
