What Will It Take to Bring Diners Back to the West End?

If the Historic West End were clothing, it would be mom jeans, forever going in and out of vogue. For two decades, it has been dismissed as a tourist district kept afloat by out-of-towners hitting the museums or wandering over from the Convention Center. However, those at the helm of its food scene, including Tony Street of Y.O. Ranch Steakhouse and Jay Khan of the Liam’s Steakhouse and other restaurants, wish locals saw the West End as they see it: an exciting culinary destination with the potential to return to its heyday.

Like mom jeans, the West End first thrived because it was practical — established around the 1920s as a warehouse district near the railroad. After the assassination of JFK at Dealey Plaza in 1963, when Dallas was dubbed the city of hate, it became a container for nationwide ire. By the ’80s and ’90s, thanks to the West End Marketplace, the Spaghetti Warehouse, the nightclubs in Dallas Alley (including the beloved Starck Club, and a popular and celeb-driven Planet Hollywood), it was the nightlife hub. But by the time the Marketplace closed in 2006, the West End was already on its way out. And despite those charming red-brick walkways and the cool vintage vibe of faded painted signs on abandoned warehouses, it has struggled to find its way back.

Tony Street

If you ask Dallasites about their aversion to the area, many cite concerns with theft and violent crime, much of which flows out of the DART station. Various organizations have launched safety initiatives in the area specifically, and in Dallas more generally. “The trinity of public safety,” says West End Association’s executive director Philip Honoré, “is manpower, lighting, and cameras. We have DDI (Downtown Dallas, Inc.) security and we have our own security.” He adds that the association works closely with Dallas Police Department (DPD) and DART police.

“The neighborhood has received multiple grants totaling over $500,000 from DDI over the last several years,” says DDI chief experience officer Shalissa Perry. She adds that the money goes toward safety and lighting projects as well as programs that enhance public spaces, including the park and the installation of holiday decorations. DDI also created the app See Say, so users throughout Dallas can report safety or cleanliness concerns or secure escorts to their cars. DART recently launched DART Cares, a program that in part assists unhoused people living on trains and in stations.

According to DPD, crime (including both violent and non-violent) in the West End decreased 27 percent between 2021 and 2023. But expecting the relative safety of the area to catch up to public perception might be a tall order. “It’s a popular notion to not think highly of the West End,” says Street. “Labeling it a tourist spot or a dead area or whatever. People hear that and it catches on. Perceptions are contagious. We’re trying to change that.”

If anyone is single-handedly attempting to make the West End happen again, it’s Jay Khan, who’s been building restaurants on Market Street since 2004 when he opened RJ Mexican Cuisine just as the district’s star was falling. He now owns six restaurants on Market Street and is getting ready to open numbers seven and eight. “The vision, for me,” he says, “is to bring back locals.”

Sunna Khan

Khan’s newest restaurants include a fine dining steakhouse called the Liam’s Steakhouse in a former TGI Fridays, a taqueria, and an upcoming beer garden. Market Street now offers a culinary experience for every whim — as long as those whims entail eating in a Jay Khan restaurant. Number six in his collection, Moak’s Family BBQ, might appeal to barbecue-loving Dallasites, as well as to tourists looking for an experience they deem authentically Texan. Although it’s only a mile and a half from Terry Black’s, whose lines stretch down the block, Khan feels confident that the “family recipes” at Moak’s, which is named after his wife’s family, will set it apart.

Sunna Khan

While Khan’s monopoly on Market — the most inviting part of the West End with the red-brick walkway under the Historic West End arch — could be a tick against the dining scene, ubiquitous private ownership is a selling point, too. Apart from a Corner Bakery, Market Street, where franchises once thrived, is blessedly devoid of chains. Khan’s restaurants also have some compelling twists. For example, the Liam’s Steakhouse offers a zabiha halal (the highest of halal standards) menu. “Prior to Liam’s,” says the anonymous halal restaurant reviewer behind IQ Food Reviews, “no options that truly encapsulate fine dining existed for our community.”

Sunna Khan

Despite safety measures and growth, some remain unconvinced that the West End is on its way back. For one thing, the area lacks free parking. For another, extra security and resources for people without housing are no silver bullet, at least thus far. “If you’re coming from Plano, let’s say, you don’t want to see all the panhandling,” says Adonis Nieves, who has owned Kokopelli Sweets on Market Street for 32 years. “If you’re a tourist, you have no choice, but if you’re a local, you do.”

Honoré acknowledges the neighborhood’s challenges, but takes an optimistic approach: “It’s not The Wizard of Oz. It’s not streets paved with gold. But we’re armed with more info and resources than ever.”

What’s yet to be seen is the extent to which business owners have set their sights on locals. Another restaurateur in the area, Joe Groves, previously of Ellen’s, recently opened Jack Ruby’s Saloon, a siren’s song to visitors of the nearby Sixth Floor Museum that catalogs the history surrounding the JFK assassination. Business owners aren’t ashamed of the fact that turning a profit in the district means catering to tourists. “There’s no reason for us to change something that’s not broken,” says Street, who claims that apart from 2020, his sales at Y.O. have increased every year.

Khan, too, sees tourism as an asset. “That’s why I love the area,” he says. “We get people from all over the world.” With a $3.7 billion plan to expand the Convention Center by 2028, and another to increase connectivity between Downtown and the Cedars, neighborhood boosters believe out-of-towner foot traffic will only increase.

Welcoming tourism, however, doesn’t mean restaurant owners embrace the “touristy” label. At 3 Eleven Kitchen & Cocktails, though a chalkboard sign outside reads “I don’t get drunk, I get awesome,” Khan and crew avoid drinks that might seem generic and replicable. For instance, the bartenders smoke and burn the wood chips for the smoked Old Fashioned by hand. At Y.O., “the word ‘ranch’ plus the neighborhood makes people think ‘tourist,’ but once they come in and see the decor...” Street says. The restaurant is decorated with artifacts from his business partner’s ranch, including antler chandeliers hanging from the ceiling and old black-and-white cattle-drive photos on the walls. “We own 48 square miles of Texas,” he says. “We’re genuine, authentic, Texas.” The meat Y.O. serves, however, is not from Texas. It comes from Kansas City.

Tony Street

Developers seem to have conflicting ideas about the West End’s future: Will it be a business district? A party hub? A playground for out-of-towners? ​​In 2015, real estate company Granite Properties Inc., turned the former West End Marketplace into an office space. Recently in the Dallas Morning News, Ray Washburne, owner of the former Dallas Morning News building and the Founders Square building, called the West End “a disaster” and shared his vision to transform it into something of a college town for El Centro students. Robert Levie, who owns the former Spaghetti Warehouse and former Cadillac Bar, says he’s being selective about whom he leases to: He doesn’t want nightclubs; he wants restaurants and retail shops that will stay open all day to cater to museum-goers and conventioneers.

Nieves doesn’t buy it: It would cost millions to bring those buildings up to code, he says, and if owners won’t do it, who’s going to lease those properties and incur that expense? Neither Granite Properties nor Lincoln Properties, owners of a number of West End buildings, responded to requests for comment.

Tony Street

To some residents of the area, the West End restaurants don’t feel like tourist destinations so much as Cheers-like community havens. Vladimir Camacho, an IT specialist who has lived in the West End for eight years, frequents the neighborhood restaurants often and enjoys seeing regulars at his favorite spot, Y.O. Steakhouse. “The chains aren’t far away, but eating down here is a different experience. These restaurants are friendlier and more intimate than the Del Frisco’s and the Fogo de Chãos,” Camacho says. It’s meaningful to him that Y.O. is “rustic and not snobby,” that staff turnover is low, and that the servers remember him. He adds that “the price point is phenomenal.” He also says he’s noticed the uptick in security at the train station and the bus interchange, as well as a decrease in the panhandling in the park.

Maybe the question shouldn’t be whether the West End can return to its late 20th century heyday, but whether it’s becoming something new. And perhaps the ongoing changes in the area will slowly but surely do that. Dallasites frequenting the West End might not be the Saturday night revelers of yore, but there’s some evidence to suggest its appeal to families who live nearby. Festivals like Frida Fest, a free, public celebration of the late Mexican artist, certainly invite that demographic in. “Our residential footprint has more than doubled in the last four years,” says Honoré, noting that a number of property owners are moving toward mixed-use spaces. That includes 1001 Ross, an apartment building that offers an Indian restaurant and a pizzeria — not enough to get us to dust off our mom jeans, but maybe it’s time for a different pair of pants.