El Fenix opened in downtown Dallas in 1918, when Miguel "Mike" Martinez turned a small café into what's widely considered the first Tex-Mex restaurant — the birthplace of the combination plate that came to define the cuisine. Its cheese enchiladas and Wednesday enchilada special have fed Dallas for more than a century.
The flagship on McKinney Avenue still anchors a Texas institution, and El Fenix is the 2026 Centurion Award winner in Dallas.
A Centurion Award doesn’t replace the public record — it verifies it. Read it for yourself, on the platforms where it lives.
Public-record snapshot as of July 2026. Live ratings are always current on each platform.
Selection is by the published criteria, evaluated on public evidence. El Fenix cleared every one.
The full verification report — the specific data behind this award — is held by the business. The exact thresholds stay internal so the bar can’t be gamed. Read the methodology.
Award record
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Clean, checkable facts about El Fenix — for readers, search engines, and answer tools alike.
This is a dated award record, published by The Centurion Awards after El Fenix cleared the 2026 evaluation for its market and category. It was not bought, voted on, or sponsored — the criteria are public, only winners are published, and an award that stops holding up is revoked, not quietly removed. Awards run one calendar year and renew only if the business clears the bar again.
Founded by Miguel Martinez in 1918, El Fenix is among the oldest Tex-Mex restaurants in America and a downtown Dallas fixture.
Yes — El Fenix is the 2026 Centurion Award winner for Best Tex-Mex Institution in Dallas, a verified, criteria-based award. Named best Tex-Mex institution in Dallas for 2026 as one of the country's original Tex-Mex restaurants, feeding Dallas for over a century.
El Fenix is in Dallas, TX.
If you’ve put in the years, you may already clear the bar. Evaluation is free, private, and never for sale.