‘I am because we are’: How East Dock is bringing Oak Cliff exactly what it asked for

The century-old building located at 900 E. Clarendon Drive is getting a makeover to East Dock: a retail concept in Oak Cliff.

DALLAS — Most people know Chef Eric Spigner as the winner of Chopped in Season 49. He’s a self-taught chef with a passion for cooking and community. That’s why he didn’t hesitate when he got a call from Robert Ramirez asking to be the executive chef at Barro, a Latin American-inspired restaurant concept opening in Oak Cliff.

“The cuisine is inspired from the more than 30 countries in Latin America,” Spigner said. “The wide range of cultural influence and ingredients that we will use is what makes this project so exciting.”

When guests walk through the door, they’ll immediately notice a Peruvian runner that stretches across a wooden communal table for guests.

“That’s what we’re looking to do here is bring that sense of community and just sit down and talk to people, even if they’re strangers,” Spigner said about the table.

Once it opens, Barro will be one of nearly a dozen retail and restaurant spaces in a building that if the walls could talk, the stories would go back over 100 years.

The century-old building located at 900 E. Clarendon Drive has been a lot of things since the early 1900s, and it’s changing once more to East Dock. The former industrial site is getting another makeover, and this time it will be known as East Dock thanks to an investment project led by Proxy Property.

“We’re a restoration group focused on preservation,” Proxy Property Co-Founder, AJ Rambler, told WFAA. “We’ve never built anything new and we’ve never torn anything down.”

Rambler and his team make it a priority to find old, blighted, or vacant buildings to breathe new life back into them. They don’t do it without community input. As renovations began on the company’s largest project to date, the group asked residents of Oak Cliff what they wanted.

A coffee shop, restaurants, and a grocery store were the overwhelming responses.

“The whole concept here was having a campus open from 6 a.m. to midnight seven days a week,” Rambler added. “There will be somewhere between 16-18 businesses and of that, about 10 retail concepts.”

Steps away from Barro is the family-owned Lola’s Cantina & Snacks. The owners are husband and wife duo Pollo and Polla Corral. The mascot, a llama named Lola, will greet everyone who enters because you can’t miss her face painted on the wall.

“We’ll be known for some yummy cold drinks. Polla makes a mean Margarita, and she likes to customize that with some beautiful elements, like a pink carnation and delicious flavors,” said Pollo. “On the snack side, we’re known for our Elote cup and we also top those off with a bunch of yummy elements.”

On the other side of the more than 63,000-square-foot building is Kuluntu. The coffee shop and bakery concept started in South Africa, where the co-owner is from. His wife, Stephanie Leichtle-Chalklen, is a Dallas native. They’re bringing a sweet taste of South Africa to Dallas.

“We will have coffee and all these wonderful baked good, but we’ll also have programming for the community,” she said. “We envision this to be a community hub where people can feel at home.”

A must-try, according to Leichtle-Chalklen, is her rooibos lattes and cappuccinos. The space will feature South African print known as shweshwe, and there will be no shortage of South African music and vibes in their inviting space.

“This space is about Ubuntu. It’s a South African philosophy that means ‘I am because we are.’ … It represents our shared humanity and is embedded in everything that we do.”

Other businesses include Hippo Cigar Lounge, The Lucky Claw, Bite Sushi & Tapas, Oak Cliff Revival, The Cliff Hanger Community Store, the foundation that operates Halperin Park, Elevate Coffee Trading, Abdias Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, and Archon Weightlifting. There could be more added to the lineup.

While all of these businesses are bringing something different to the table, they all have one thing in common: giving Oak Cliff residents what they asked for.

“Oak Cliff is beautiful. There’s so much rich history here. People are faithful and loyal. As a business owner, this is the kind of community you want to be in, where people are rooting for you and willing to support,” Corral added.

Businesses at East Dock will have soft openings between April and May. They all plan to be open for the first matches of the FIFA World Cup.