11 OctOber 30 - NOvember 5, 2025 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents T he Knox-Henderson neigh- borhood is an idyllic slice of American pie. This area, a few miles north of down- town, was first developed in the 1920s and is named for the two streets, Knox and Henderson, that run through it east to west and meet over Central Express- way. The mile-and-a-half strip has a mix of restaurants, bars and shops on both sides of the highway; some are the old soul of the neighborhood, some new and sparkly. It’s a lovely neighborhood with many mid-cen- tury homes. It’s got charm and character. There are large oak trees, and the grass is definitely green. But at the far west end of Knox Street, tow- ering glass buildings are disrupting that neigh- borhood feel. A construction project took out an entire city block on the adjacent Travis Street. Now the skeleton of a modern high-rise stands tall with cranes jabbing the skyline. And literally beneath those cranes is one white, squat, two-story struc- ture built in the 1940s. A Google Maps view shows an almost comical glimpse of an entire city block cleared to the dirt with one small build- ing hugging the corner for dear life. Café Madrid is a tapas bar that serves pitchers of sangria and offers a lovely menu of Spanish and Mediterranean dishes. Flamenco dancers and musicians often entertain. The small sidewalk patio is lovely, and it’s been around for de- cades, providing a bit of Span- ish charm hard to find here in Dallas. And guess what. Café Ma- drid ain’t moving. 35 Years of Comunidad D onica Jimenez fell in love with Spanish culture and language while attend- ing Hockaday. She still remembers her Spanish teacher’s name: Flake Daniel. Also in those early impressionable years, her parents imparted to her a pen- chant for entertaining and dinner parties. These two things led Jimenez to study Iberian culture and history at SMU. After graduation, she had a few translation jobs, but Jimenez’s heart just wasn’t in it. She wanted to own a business that somehow involved Spain and hospitality. She’d often travel to Spain and come back to Dallas with a sense of longing. Something about the Spanish culture was missing from Dallas. “It’s a sense of community. Everyone meets at their local tapas bar, the mom and dad with the babies in the stroller and grandma and the neighbors. I wanted to re- create that here in Dallas,” she says. In 1989, Jimenez saw a lease sign in the window at 4501 Travis St. She measured the distance to the restaurant from her house — she wanted to be close to home. It was 1.8 miles. “When I decided to open a restaurant, I got in my car and I just started driving,” Jimenez says. “This was the first spot I saw with a for-lease sign in it.” Soon after she opened the restaurant, she started a family. “I put a sign on my front door: ‘I’m going to Baylor to have my baby.’ I came back two days later with my daughter in a car seat. She was on the bar,” Jimenez says with a big, gracious laugh that will melt anyone within earshot. The restaurant became her life. On her first trip to Spain after she signed the lease, she loaded 11 suitcases with wares for the restaurant. “They’d just started a nonstop flight to Iberia and I was telling them I’m opening a restaurant and they were so ex- cited they didn’t charge me extra for the luggage.” After 35 years in business, she sees many regulars, but recently, the script has flipped, and there are more new customers. “I guess with all the people moving to Dal- las,” she says. She gets many students who have trav- eled to Spain andf are looking for that flavor closer to home. Young parents and walkers along the Katy Trail pop in for an early drink and bite to eat. There’s a pre-opera and sym- phony crowd, then late at night, she says, a more artsy, eclectic crowd shows up for wine and conversation. You’ll likely hear a couple of languages drifting from tables. She raised three kids as a single mom within its walls and has had many of the same employees for decades. One thing everyone should understand about Jimenez: It’s really not about the money. ‘A Lot … A Lot of Money’ D ecades ago, a Houston-based real estate company, Sarofim Realty Advisors, started buying property on Travis Street, where Café Madrid sits. “Over 25 years, they bought one piece at a time under different names, so no one knew that it was one company buying the whole block,” Jimenez explains. “So this was the last piece they didn’t have.” In 2017, her landlord came in one day to let her know they were selling the building; a developer, MSD Capital, an affiliate of tech magnate Michael Dell’s investment firm, was buying the whole block. They told her she’d need to be out by the end of the year. “And I said, ‘Well, I have a right of first re- fusal in my lease.’ And they said, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, but this is a lot of money.’” How much? She asked. “A lot … a lot of money,” she remembers them promising her. They balked and wouldn’t tell her exactly how much. A month goes by, and she gets an official notice from the developer with an offer to buy the space, which was way over market value. “I never had investors. My grandfather loaned me the money to open up my restau- rant. It’s literally just been me for 35 years,” she says She did the math, knowing she was in it for the long term. “I’d been here about 25 years at that point. I’m not going anywhere. I don’t want to start over,” she says. She decided to exercise her first right of refusal, accept their offer and bought the building despite the inflated price. Then, things got messy. Five days before she was supposed to close on her loan, the bank called, telling her she needed to “walk away from this deal.” They told her they wouldn’t be able to complete her paperwork in time to close the loan. Four months of paperwork and her entire life’s work started to circle the drain. Seem- ingly, anyway. Perhaps for some mild-man- nered tapas bar owner, but not Donica Jimenez. “I’m very strong in my faith. And this whole time I’ve just been praying to God to show me what to do. Guide me,” she says. | CITY OF ATE | t Dish Standing Her Ground at Cafe Madrid Nathan Hunsinger Café Madrid offers café culture while the skyline bursts with condos. Left: Owner Donica Jimenez has operated the restaurant for 35 years. >> p12 Nathan Hunsinger BY LAUREN DREWES DANIELS
