Est. 1986 More than 1,500 columns served!
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After 85 years, The Original Mexican Restaurant is all new.
Once dim, the dining rooms now fill with bright sunshine.
Two custom-built bars are inlaid with chile de árbol peppers. New tables made in Mexico are lined with colorful tiles.
The old neon sign outside is being refurbished, and a newer one in the bar reads "Dining & Dancing." (It was made for the locally shot 1988 Julia Roberts movie Baja Oklahoma.)
The Original also has new menu items such as jalapeño-Monterey Jack tamales. But the chili-and-cheese Tex-Mex favorites remain, centered around the "Roosevelt Special," named for 1930s Fort Worth visitor President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his son, former local resident Elliott Roosevelt.
The Self family is carrying on the tradition of 1926 founders Geronimo and Lola San Miguel Piñeda of Waco. If you look at old picture postcards, the main dining room was bright and airy, like a patio in Mexico. The formerly dark bar area will open onto a new back garden.
The Original is open for lunch and dinner daily; 4713 Camp Bowie Blvd., 817-738-6226.
(For other old-school Tex-Mex chili-and-cheese enchiladas, try El Rancho Grande, 1400 N. Main St., or northwest Fort Worth favorite Arizola's, 6055 Lake Worth Blvd.)
Arlington's downtown renaissance will continue with two openings this weekend.
Mellow Mushroom Pizza Bakers and the Grease Monkey Burger Shop and Social Club will open by Labor Day.
The Grease Monkey is named for the old Vandergriff car dealership in its 200 S. Mesquite St. space. It features an Angry Burger with green chile and garlic, and burgers topped with chicken-fried bacon; www.greasemonkeyburgers.com.
Mellow Mushroom is a Georgia-based pizza restaurant that jokes about "shrooms" but sells serious pizzas and calzones. It's opening at 200 N. Center St.; 817-274-7173.
Barcadia , a video game-filled restaurant and bar, is open for a preview in Fort Worth this weekend.
Not sure whether the entire menu is available, but Barcadia is known for first-rate bar food and a Sunday brunch menu. It's near the Love Shack So7 at Trinity Park; 816 Matisse St., 817-348-8015, www.barcadiabars.com.
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