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Now that Cantina Laredo has closed in Addison after 42 years, the company has one remaining restaurant in Texas that’s not at an airport. It’s in\u00a0Frisco.<\/p>\n
Courtesy of Cantina Laredo<\/p>\n
Texas’ first Cantina Laredo<\/a>, a\u00a0Tex-Mex restaurant that started in Addison 42 years ago, closed Aug. 2, 2026.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Cantina Laredo’s parent company, Consolidated Restaurant Operations, confirmed the closure of the original restaurant but wouldn’t answer questions.\u00a0The Dallas-based company also owns steakhouses III Forks and Silver Fox, Luckys diner and the Tex-Mex chain El Chico.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Dallas history<\/p>\n Cantina Laredo was created by Texas restaurateur Gilbert\u00a0Cuellar Jr., whose family founded El Chico nearly 100 years ago.<\/p>\n Cuellar told The Dallas Morning News he opened Cantina Laredo in 1984, inspired by a bus trip he took to Monterrey, Mexico \u2014 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\u00a0Cuellar\u00a0ate Mexican food and drank Ramos gin fizz cocktails at a legendary restaurant called Cadillac Bar.<\/p>\n 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n Early menus featured cabrito,\u00a0oysters on the half shell and fajitas.\u00a0The\u00a0Cuellars 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\u00a0The News two days after the closure.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n 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 \u2014 over 180,<\/a> according to the Addison website.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n