El Chico is coming back to Wichita Falls. New property owners Donnie and Kelli Long plan to remodel the restaurant's former home at Kemp Boulevard and Southwest Parkway, aiming to reopen the Tex-Mex chain by early 2027 with a wood-burning kitchen and an expanded bar.
The Longs plan to begin remodeling the building next week, according to texomashomepage.com, with a target opening date of January 5, 2027. Kelli Long said construction was beginning immediately, with plans to open after the first of the new year, according to the Times Record News. The couple bought the El Chico franchise and intend for the restaurant to remain much the same as it was before its closure in April 2023, the paper reports.
Kelli Long told the outlet the couple was inspired to reopen El Chico because it was one of their favorite restaurants, and that they used to go there every Friday night before deciding to act on bringing it back. She said the plan includes adding steaks and enlarging the bar area. Donnie Long, meanwhile, intends for meat to be cooked on wood instead of gas, telling the paper that wood-fired meat simply tastes better.
A Return to the Original Cooking Style
The family-owned restaurant will feature new menu items alongside the return to wood-burning cooking, according to texomashomepage.com's report. Donnie Long said he believes quality food, capable operators, cleanliness and atmosphere are what make a restaurant successful, a philosophy the Longs appear to be leaning on as they rebuild the Kemp Boulevard property. The couple also operates Longo Landscape & Stone on Texas Highway 79, the Times Record News notes.
Wichita Falls once had two El Chico locations. The first opened on Central Freeway in 1978, while the Southwest Parkway store opened in a former K-Mart building in April 1998, according to earlier Times Record News reporting. That Southwest Parkway restaurant sat in a strip mall at the busy intersection of Kemp Boulevard and Southwest Parkway, the same site the Longs now plan to reopen.
How the Last Location Closed
The Central Freeway location shut down in January 2016 after tax liens totaling nearly $50,000 were filed against its operators, per the same Times Record News account. A separate, contemporaneous report on the closure put the figure at $53,216, filed against the business on December 11, and said new documents later showed the lien had been filed in error, according to a 2016 Times Record News report.
The Southwest Parkway restaurant held on for several more years before its own end came in 2023. An employee confirmed that social media posts about the restaurant closing by the end of that week were true, the 2023 Times Record News report states. NewsChannel 6 reported at the time that El Chico Cafe in Wichita Falls was closing its doors because it no longer had a lease.
A Brand With a Century of History
El Chico describes itself as a Dallas-based Tex-Mex company that traces its roots to a neighborhood restaurant opened by Adelaida Cuellar in Kaufman County in 1928. The chain says on its franchise website that it has been serving Tex-Mex food for 100 years and franchising restaurants for more than 55 years. El Chico Restaurants currently operates eleven restaurants across five states, per the Times Record News report, while the company's own franchise materials describe operating and franchising locations in six states, with an initial franchise fee of $35,000 per restaurant and a continuing royalty fee of 5% of gross sales.
For now, the target date of January 5, 2027, remains just that — a target. But for Wichita Falls diners who spent years driving past an empty strip mall at Kemp and Southwest Parkway, the prospect of wood-fired Tex-Mex returning to that corner is enough to get excited about.
