10 February 5 - 11, 2026 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents an ICE agent or not? How am I supposed to know?” For Sanchez, making a statement doesn’t involve posting on Instagram. Rather, he talks one-on-one to his employees and cus- tomers. He does this partly because he doesn’t like the way social media is flooded with opinions and a mishmash of truth and fiction, and partly because hospitality is a one-on-one business. No employees or cus- tomers have asked him about it, he says, but says that “in theory, businesses follow suit with how the owners think.” He suspects that his patrons are like- minded. He can’t say for certain, but San- chez makes a point of being on a first-name basis with as many people as possible in his bar on any given night and trains his bar staff to do the same. “These are very intimate re- lationships,” he says. “The good thing about a small business is everybody knows every- body, and those conversations will come up naturally.” Sanchez’s grandmother, father, eight of his uncles and aunts moved to the continen- tal U.S. from Guam, arriving by boat in Long Beach, California, in 1958. He is bothered by the way ICE is arresting people without looking at their papers, based on their ac- cents or skin color. “If my dad, who is darker-complected than I, was … at a 7-Eleven, and walked out where guys might be looking for daily work, how does anyone know, by looking at [any of them], their immigration status? That’s a problem.” Sanchez says his business hasn’t been di- rectly affected, but he is concerned about his employees. He knew Petey Feng, a line cook who was detained by ICE in November after going to a routine immigration check-in. “He was here one day, and then he was gone,” he says. “Petey was one of the sweet- est human beings you could ever want to meet. All he wanted to do was cook, eat and make cool shit.” Feng was a regular at the original Black Swan in Deep Ellum. “By looking at Petey, did I know he was undocumented? No. He was a human being living in this country,” he says. “Does the crime fit the punishment? No.” Taco Y Vino “A s business owners, we try to em- pathize,” Jimmy Contreras says. His casual taqueria, Taco Y Vino, opened in Bishop Arts in 2018, and he added a second location in Garland in 2025. “But you want to be true to yourself and who you are. I think anyone who knows me or follows Taco Y Vino knows who I am and what I stand for.” Contreras grew up in McAllen, and his parents raised him to be proud of being American. “What makes us such a great na- tion is that we’re allowed to have those thoughts,” he says. “But, I don’t have to agree with them, and I don’t have to support them. I can be an individual and a contribut- ing member of society.” For Contreras, human rights are univer- sal. “I believe there is a society in which we can all get along and have empathy for ev- erybody… I’m cool with me having lofty ex- pectations, us getting along, and having free health care and education,” he says. But things have gotten so heated, he noted, that at a recent dinner with friends at a Knox Avenue restaurant, Contreras went to the bathroom and came back to find his table yelling at each other over a political disagreement. “We have a divide in America that is created by ourselves. We surround ourselves with people who think the exact same way as ourselves, and think that is America,” he says. “That is not true.” Contreras says he had a conversation with his employees a long time ago about what to do if ICE entered the building. He created dual-language pamphlets with in- structions, hung signs indicating private ar- eas, and the person to call if employees or customers are detained. He says they regu- larly get notified about ICE agents in the neighborhoods where his businesses are lo- cated. It’s above and beyond what many small businesses have done to date. “I have a friend in the service industry who lost her temper, got arrested and now is worried she’ll get deported,” Contreras says. No charges were filed, but someone did call the police, and now, he says, she’s worried that she’s on ICE’s radar, even if no criminal activity occurred. “It’s a hard pill to swallow.” He has seen some businesses in predomi- nantly Hispanic neighborhoods sitting empty because customers are afraid to go in. He declines to name them for fear of bring- ing them unwanted attention from ICE. It’s hard for him to say if the current dip in his business is due to an overall difficult eco- nomic climate with sharply rising food costs, a post-holiday lull, the winter storm, or a preference not to go out, especially to a taqueria, for fear of running into ICE. “Sitting here talking to you, I’m thinking, ‘Well shit, if I’m giving my opinion on ICE and everything going on, [what if] they pick up a paper, read my name, and then go hit my restaurants?’” ▼ CLOSINGS GOODBYE TO A LOCAL ICON RISING RENTS AND NEW LANDLORDSIS BRINGING SEVY’S PARTY TO A CLOSE. BY JEFF SIEGEL T he booth was on the right as you walked in, along the far back wall, past the tables lining the patio, tucked into the corner. Back then, I was just another wine writer in a town that had lots of them, but eating lunch in The Booth at Sevy’s with Gallo’s Carmen Castorina and whoever he brought for a wine tasting that day made me feel like a whole lot more. Sevy’s was that kind of place, a Park Cit- ies hangout where even someone who writes about cheap wine felt welcome. I thought about those lunches again when the news broke that Sevy’s new landlord was throwing the restaurant out after almost 30 years in business. These days, even though long-time Dallas restaurants are closing so quickly that it’s hard to keep track, Sevy’s seemed the exception. It had survived the tech crash at the beginning of the century, the 2008 recession, chef-owner Jim Sever- son’s health problems, and the pandemic. Surely it was immune. But surely not, given the landlord boom scooping up some of the city’s most desir- able restaurant real estate. So I called Car- men, retired for several years, and said, “Let’s have lunch at Sevy’s one last time.” The Booth Not much had changed since we had eaten there a couple of years ago. It was still packed (“Just one empty table,” said Car- men after scanning the room at noon); the service was still impeccable; and the duck flautas with black bean pico was still a re- quired appetizer. Sevy’s, for all its Park Cities power- lunchness, always had a more neighbor- hood feel than Al Biernat’s, the other power icon in those days. Dallas’ mayors and Jerry Jones ate at Al Biernat’s, and you got the sense they wanted to be seen eating there. At Sevy’s, the feeling was mostly about eat- ing lunch. It was such a neighborhood place that a friend of mine, who grew up in the Park Cities, couldn’t eat dinner at Sevy’s without seeing people he had gone to high school with. I mentioned this to Severson, who sat with Carmen and me in The Booth for a few min- utes, and he said that was one of his goals when he opened the place. It was also going to make it difficult to find a new location; what’s the point of having a neighborhood restaurant if there’s no place for it in the neighborhood? Which offers a particularly ironic twist to the Sevy’s dilemma. I did some reporting, and it seems only banks can afford the new, twice as high, rent. This, even though there are already more than a dozen banks in the surrounding couple of blocks (I drove around and counted). Who would have thought that a restaurant catering to people who use banks more than the rest of us would be turned out by a bank?Finally, that Severson joined us speaks to the kind of stand-up guy Carmen is. And it speaks to The Booth, where we always sat and where there’s a name-sized plaque with “Carmen Castorina” written across it next to plaques listing other well-known guests who sat there, including T. Boone Pickens, Norman Brinker and Roger Horchow. In fact, Troy Aikman’s name used to be on The Booth, which led to a story that Car- men and I still smile about. We were eating lunch at Sevy’s when Aikman walked in. Since we were in The Booth, Aikman had to take a table, just like any other customer. Where else in Dallas would someone with- out a Super Bowl ring be treated better than a legendary Cowboys quarterback? Appar- ently, only at Sevy’s. Sevy’s will close June 27, 2026. Lauren Drewes Daniels Owners Russell Tibbits and Allison Macalik of Little Joy Cafe raised money on National Day of Action. City of Ate from p9
