Landmark Fort Worth, Arlington restaurants known for chips and salsa sold to local chef
Fort Worth restaurateur Marcus Paslay, owner of Clay Pigeon Food + Drink and Piattello Italian Kitchen, has bought the 42-year-old Mercado Juarez Cafes, including a landmark location at the gateway to the Stockyards.
The restaurants at 1651 E. Northside Drive in Fort Worth, and 125 Interstate 20 East in Arlington, will continue with the same legacy food, Paslay said, including the signature warm table salsa.
Mercado Juarez Cafes were founded by late Fort Worth Tex-Mex restaurant pioneer Don Bowden. He opened five locations at the peak of 1980s demand for sizzling fajitas, then new to the market, and frozen margaritas.
When Bowden retired nearly 20 years ago, he sold the restaurants to their managers, who recently sold them to Paslay, he said.
The sale was first reported by CultureMap Fort Worth.
“It’s a really good business with a lot of potential,” said Paslay, also owner of Provender Hall in the Stockyards and the forthcoming Walloon’s on West Magnolia Avenue.
Paslay said he remembered dining at the south Arlington restaurant several times as a junior high student, long before the development of Arlington Highlands and surrounding shopping centers.
Both the Arlington and Fort Worth locations offer freeway real estate. The Fort Worth location is at the primary exit for traffic going to or from the Stockyards. It’s also popular with many Big 12 Conference visitors going to TCU games.
“Anytime you have a chance for a place that’s been in business 40 years — that’s somewhere special,” Paslay said. “Once I learned how many second- and third-generation customers are still coming, it made a lot of sense. The food is very good.”
He hopes to expand bar offerings, he said.
Mercado Juarez originally served cabrito, costillas and seafood dishes such as lobster tail and swordfish fajitas.
The entryways were lined with gift shops and stalls like a city market in Mexico.
Bowden had been a partner in expanding the Pancho’s Mexican Buffet chain to north Texas and then opened a smaller Tex-Mex restaurant, Dos Gringos, in the Cultural District.
The first Mercado Juarez opened at 1901 W. Northwest Highway in northwest Dallas.
A long-gone 1976 location in north Arlington, still vacant at 2222 Miller Road, became a must-stop before and after Texas Rangers games.
A Mercado Juarez also operated briefly in the now-demolished former Cullen and Priscilla Davis mansion, 4100 Stonegate Blvd., 20 years after of a notorious 1976 multiple shooting where Priscilla Davis’ boyfriend and 12-year-old daughter were killed and Priscilla and another man were injured.
