OAK CLIFF S E P T E M B E R 2 0 2 6 I A D V O C AT E M A G . C O M
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OAK CLIFF ADVOCATE VOL.17 NO.9
OPENING REMARKS 4 North Texas Giving Day FEATURES 6 Elmwoof 8 Critters in Dallas 12 Beckley Club 18 Community cats PROFILE 10 Christina Melton Crain DINING 16 Kilmac’s BACKSTORY 22 Dallas Zoo
The gallery wall on the far right side of Kilmac’s. Read more on page 14. Photography by Kathy Tran.
OPENING REMARKS
By ALI QUINTERO
Dear neighbor, For 35 years, the Advocate has been part of Dallas neighborhoods — telling the stories that matter most to the people who live here. And for much of that time, people like you have made that work possible. This year for Nor th Texas Giving Day, we’re fo cusing our Giving Day campaign on something very tangible: getting the Advocate into more streets in your neighborhood. We want to make sure that more neighbors have the opportunity to find the Advocate on their street, at a local rack or at a local business. It costs ap proximately $15,000 every month to distribute the Advocate throughout our communities. O u r No r t h Te x a s G i v i n g D ay g o a l i s $ 2 0 , 0 0 0 . Reaching that goal will help cover approximately one month of neighborhood distribution and about three months of rack deliver y. That’s more than a number. It’s more opportunities for a neighbor to pick up the Advocate. More people discovering a s tor y about their community. More local businesses, schools, leaders and residents being seen and heard. Will you consider making a North Texas Giving Day gift to help us reach our $20,000 goal? Text ADVOCATE to 844-844-6844 to make a donation today. Thank you for believing in local journalism and for being part of the Advocate’s story. After 35 years, we couldn’t be more grateful for the community that has helped us get here — and we hope you’ ll help us bring the Advocate to even more neighbors in the years ahead.
give local HELP US GET RELEVANT NEWS IN THE HANDS OF MORE OF OUR NEIGHBORS.
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Text ADVOCATE to 844-844-6844 or donate online to Advocate Media
With gratitude,
Ali Quintero, Chief Operating Officer
9.17.26
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ABOUT THE COVER Mural on the side of Mighty Fine off of North Tyler Street. Photography by Lauren Allen.
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ELMWOOF
The dog park at the heart of Elmwood Story by ALEXANDER KWAPIS | Photography by JUSTIN SCHWARTZ
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I
Elmwoof is a modest 0.3acre park filled with trees for unleashed canine entertainment.
f Oak Cliff has a dog park that captures the spirit of neighborhood life, it is Elmwoof. Modest by design with a gate, wood chips, dogs at play and people lingering long enough for a quick hello to become a conversation, it shows how community can grow around the places neighbors return to and care for together. The park sits on a triangular strip of land at 2100 S. Edgefield Ave., across from Margaret B. Henderson Elementar y School and close to Elmwood’s small-business district. Before it opened, residents didn’t have any convenient places nearby where their dogs could safely play off-leash. “What makes Elmwoof different is simple: location, location, location,” says Elmwood neighbor Joshua Kasper. “Before it opened, the nearest dog parks were near downtown or far south of Dallas. Neither was convenient for Elmwood’s dogs or their people.” Elmwoof began in 2013 under Kenneth Denson, then-president of the Elmwood Neighborhood Association. “Elmwoof started as a monthly popup, but making it permanent took years of persistence,” says Jorge Esteban, an Elmwood neighbor who helped navigate the process. Esteban recalls that a nearly $10,000 GrowSouth grant was forfeited after the project stalled, but neighbors kept the idea moving forward. “Neighborhood leaders and residents raised money, worked through City Hall, and did the hard work of turning the idea into a real park,” Esteban says. “Volunteer labor, local fundraising, the city’s MOWmentum program, and a grant from Heritage Oak Cliff all helped bring the permanent park to life,” says Jessica Sloan, an ENA volunteer and neighbor. The park’s impact soon extended beyond its gates. “It meant a great deal to help open the first official off-leash dog park in southern Dallas and then watch it take on a life of its own, even inspiring the Xoloitzcuintli mural next door,” Esteban says. Unlike a traditional city-managed park, Elmwoof depends on the people and businesses around it. The Elmwood Neighborhood Association and local volunteers organize cleanups, make repairs, replenish supplies and handle the
ongoing work of keeping the park open. According to Sloan, Green Pet Supply has donated waste bags and hosted vaccination clinics, JD’s Tree Service has provided mulch and tree care and Downtown businesses have offered water refills. “Elmwoof is more than a dog park; it is a labor of love and a gathering place for neighbors and their dogs,” Sloan says. The park is also part of the everyday rhythm of Edgefield Avenue. Dog walks overlap with coffee runs, patio stops, errands and visits to nearby businesses. Elmwoof is not only a place for dogs to play; it is part of how neighbors move through Elmwood, one walk, one errand and one dog-led greeting at a time. As plans move forward to make Edgefield more walkable and connected, Elmwoof already offers a small example of what that can look like. That openness comes with responsibility. Elmwoof has no fee or membership requirement and is open from sunrise to sunset, but keeping it safe and welcoming depends on the people who use it. “Keeping it going requires dog lovers to pitch in and do their share to keep it safe and available,” says Eloy Treviño, co-owner of Green Pet Supply. Visitors are expected to watch their dogs, clean up after them, limit excessive barking, fill any holes their dogs dig, and bring water during hot weather. In a small, volunteer-supported park, those individual actions matter. That shared care is what gives Elmwoof much of its meaning. It is not a destination dog park, but a neighborhood space sustained by the people who use it. Perhaps that is why Elmwoof says so much about Oak Cliff. Community often grows through ordinary routines: a shaded picnic table, a dog waiting at the gate, a conversation between neighbors and people who believe small places are worth showing up for. ALEXANDER KWAPIS lives in Elmwood and is a co-founder of Wild Dirt with Dennis Fiore. Their work has appeared in Forbes, Fast Company, Flow Trip and other publications. Wild Dirt tells stories, supports conservation, and creates welldesigned products. SEPTEMBER 2026 oakcliff.advocatemag.com
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OPOSSUMS, ARMADILLOS & FROGS, OH MY!
Photo courtesy of GettyImages/Bill Draker
Advocate columnist Patti Vinson always has an animal story to tell | Story by PATTI VINSON There are many forms of wildlife around our neighborhood. Our guest writer Patti Vinson checked in with some resident experts about a few animals that share our spaces.
OP O S SU M S
Photo courtesy of GettyImages/lavin photography.
They lurk in the dark, have sharp teeth and a menacing hiss and look like giant rodents. But if you happen to spot an opossum in your backyard, consider yourself lucky. These little guys are fascinating creatures that benefit our shared ecology and are worthy of our appreciation. Opossums, as a group, are among the oldest, most primitive mammals. They walked the Earth with dinosaurs, looking pretty much the same in today. Some scientists call them “living fossils” because they have survived relatively unchanged for at least 50 million years. Another unusual feature: its scaly, nearly hairless tail is prehensile, meaning it can grasp things. “They’ll use it to carry leaves for their nests and dens or hold on to branches as they climb,” explains Sam Kieschnick, an urban wildlife biologist. Perhaps most intriguing of all is this mammal’s defense mechanism: “playing possum.” Kieschnick says, “Opossums lower their heart rate, slow their breathing, keep their mouth open and even stick out their tongue. Not only do they look dead, but they ‘smell dead,’ too,” by emitting a foul-smelling odor from their anal glands. “Opossums have adapted to living with us – using some of our decks or sheds as a shelter, using the ditches along the roads as corridors, and even using some of our refuse as nutrients. They are a remnant of the past, the same sort of animal that early explorers or Indigenous peoples would interact with – and we can still do that today.”
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A R M A DI L LO S Kieschnick gets excited over the official small mammal of Texas. “Armadillo talk! I love armadillos — they’re such cool animals,” he smiles. “I’d argue that they’re one of our most recognizable and charismatic animals here in Texas. How many times have you seen a cartoon of an armadillo with a cowboy hat to represent Texas?” Highly recognizable by their protective shell made of tough, bony plates covered by leathery skin, the species found most often in these parts is the nine-banded armadillo. Contrary to popular belief, not all species of armadillos can roll into a ball when threatened, and any of these critters in this area will likely rely on their surprising speed to scamper away from danger. Kieschnick says, “They typically are nocturnal, but it’s not uncommon to see them during the day, digging in leaf litter and in forested areas looking for bugs and grubs and worms to eat. They’re insectivores — so they’ll actively search for these.” It’s true that holes dug on your property aren’t always a welcome sight. “Unfortunately, sometimes they’ll be hunting for grubs in our yards and lawns. It can be frustrating, no doubt,” Kieschnick sympathizes, “but I’d argue that they’re benefitting the soil by aerating it and eating some of the grubs that could also damage the plants.”
Photo courtesy of GettyImages/Rolf Nussbaumer
R IO G R A N DE C H I R PI NG F RO G It’s a neighborhood mystery that seems to roll around about this time every year. You’re enjoying a warm summer evening outside when you hear a loud, high-pitched chirp. Or maybe you’d describe it as the sound of rubber-soled shoes on a gym floor. Or is it the call of an unfamiliar insect? Mystery solved: Let’s all welcome the Rio Grande Chirping Fro g ( R G C F ) t o t h e neighborhood. East Dallas neighbor and Master Naturalist Whitney Wolf first became aware of the R G C F s e ve r a l ye a r s ago. “I started hearing chirping at night when we took the dogs walking around the neighborhood. The chirping h a s a l ways so u n d e d like sleepy birds to me. As a long-time birder, I knew that was unlikely,” she remembers. She conducted a bit of detective work and found recordings of a frog with an identical call, but every range map in field guides didn’t show them in North Texas.
Sometime later, Wolf attended a master naturalist meeting in Corpus Christi, where one of the training sessions was about frogs. She learned that the Rio Grande Chirping Frog had extended its range into North Texas but published field guides hadn’t caught up yet. It was at this conference that she finally glimpsed the frog. “They were having a mothing event (i.e. – attracting, observing, photographing, identifying and documenting moths, according to the National Moth Week website) led by Kieschnick. And they found a Rio Grande Chirping Frog. It’s the only one I’ve ever actually seen.” Wolf is glad to help clear up the mystery. “A n y n u m b e r o f m y friends and neighbors have asked me about the ‘bird chirping at night.’ They’re surprised to learn it’s a tiny frog making that peeping noise. RGCFs have been living in my yard for years and even survived Icemageddon.”
The Gateway Charter Academy announces that it will operate the Community Eligibility Program (CEP) under the National School Lunch Program and School Breakfast Program for the 2026-2027 school year. Schools qualifying to operate CEP serve breakfast and lunch to all children at no charge and eliminate the collection of meal applications for free, reduced-price, and paid student meals. This approach reduces burdens for both families and school administrators and helps ensure that students receive nutritious meals.
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SEPTEMBER 2026 oakcliff.advocatemag.com
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p ro f i l e
REHABILITATION REIMAGINED Christina Melton Crain helps formerly incarcerated individuals start life after prison on the right foot Story by AUSTIN WOOD Photography by KATHY TRAN Kimball alumna Christina Melton Crain helps formerly incarcerated individuals start life after prison.
C
hristina Melton Crain wants felons on the street. And no, the former Gov. Rick Perry-appointed chair of the Texas State Board of Corrections isn’t advocating for a Gotham-style takeover of society by experienced criminals. Instead, Crain is trying to keep justice-affected individuals, as she calls them, from making the same mistakes that landed them inside in the first place. A Kimball High School graduate, Crain finished a master’s degree at the University of Texas at Austin before being awarded her juris doctorate from Oklahoma City University in 1991. In her over 40 years practicing law, she’s mainly specialized in juvenile cases and representation. But, up until 2001, her experience with criminal justice and the corrections system had been limited. That year, Gov. Perry appointed her to the Texas Board of Criminal Justice, an experience which she describes as eye-opening. Crain went on to serve as the first and only chairwoman of the board and is credited with significant reforms during her tenure, including the introduction of a program intended to soften procedural barriers during family visits. As her term ended in 2008, Crain knew her work in the field wasn’t finished. In 2010, Crain founded Unlocking Doors, a nonprofit organization created to smoothen individuals’ transition into society and prevent recidivism — the economic impact of which its CEO and president stresses when emphasizing the organization’s importance. Operating out of a north Greenville Avenue office tower, Unlocking Doors serves close to 1,000 clients a year, most of whom are referred to the nonprofit while still incarcerated. Crain’s team finds employment, housing, healthcare and other services for clients with one of the organization’s 300 plus partner organizations. The organization’s model has a 92% success rate, Crain says. To learn more about how Unlocking Doors achieves that success rate, we sat down with the former president of the Dallas Bar Association and current University of Texas System regent for an interview. Here’s what Crain had to say.
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H OW ’ D YOU G E T I N TO C R I M I N A L J UST I C E ? No one in my family went to prison. I didn’t do criminal law. And then all of a sudden, one day, I get a call from Gov. Perry, and he says, “I want to put you on this Texas Board of Criminal Justice.” I’m like, “What the heck is this?” A couple months into it, I was pretty much wowed by the whole thing. It’s not like a lot of boards and commissions where you just get together to rubber stamp. It is about lives, and it just resonated with me. Plus, in my law practice, I represent children who are abused, neglected and injured, and a lot of their parents have been involved in the criminal justice system. WHAT ARE SOME MISCONCEPTIONS YOU THINK PEOPLE HAVE ABOUT RESTORATIVE JUSTICE? A lot of times when people hear rehabilitation or restorative justice, they’re thinking that we’re just letting the person off. It’s “nobody can be rehabilitated,” and that can’t be further from the truth. Now, are there a lot of people that we will never help? Absolutely, because there are a lot of people that just don’t want to be helped, but it starts with the person. That’s our model here, you can opt into our program. It’s not mandatory. We talked about making it mandatory at one point, going to the state asking public officials to say, “If you’re coming back to Dallas, this ought to be a mandatory program.” We decided long ago that it was never going to work, that it was best to make it an optional program, because then when the person walks through the door, we know at least they are saying up front to us, “I want a fresh start.” W H AT W E R E T H E E A R LY DAYS L I K E ? Shoestring budget, basically taking a very small concept and forming a board. They were friends. They were people involved in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, some judges, etc. You would go to every meeting that became available just to get the word out that we are here. And by the way, we’re here to work with everybody. So it was making sure people understood why we were different and why we were relevant in the space. I think that was super important to understand that we’re just not
another reentry organization. It took five, six years to kind of really start resonating with everybody, and then we moved to this space and built this out, and all of a sudden we started getting noticed. W H AT D O E S T H E P R O C E S S LO O K L I K E ? You fill out several assessments on your own. We have a career key that you fill out. We have a benefits calculator you fill out. And then there’s what’s called BEI, it’s a behaviors and experiences inventory that you fill out. And then we have a psych form that you fill out, that we just added this year, and then you get placed with a broker. Our reentry brokers are our case managers, because they’re really brokering the relationships. We don’t provide the service, that’s how we’re unique. Tier one brokers are going to take you and they’re going to do the full- on evidence based assessment. It’s the one that TDCJ uses. So our folks have to be trained in it. It’s going to tell us everything, from number of incarcerations, education history, children, health care. Everything. So that broker is going to take all these assessments and is going to work up a plan for you. The tier two broker is going to take that plan and is going to start making referrals for you, based on the needs that are in that plan, to one of our 300 partner organizations. Then we can add that person in or that group in as a partner, but once all those referrals are made, we’re going to keep track of you as you’re working that plan. W H Y I S T H I S S O I M P O RTA N T TO T H E G E N E RA L PU B L I C ? I’ve got to look at the return on interest is, and I’m in the people business, but yet, how does this fiscally affect the community? And so I think, roughly, it’s about $80 a day for the general population offender at TDCJ. So if you take that and you amortize that over somebody being incarcerated, let’s say they get out and then they come back, and then they get out and they come back. Think about that. I mean, it’s crazy, whereas, on average, for the general guy that walks through our doors, it costs me maybe a buck a day.
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
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I SPY WITH MY LITTLE EYE SOMETHING BLUE & GREEN Beckley Club Estates celebrates 100 Story by VICTORIA HERNANDEZ
One of the peacocks of Beckley Club is known as Razzel. Photography by Lauren Allen.
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hrough the winding roads of Beckley Club Estates, it’s common to see the wildlife typically associated with a Texas suburb. Owls, raccoons, bunnies. This neighborhood has seen such for decades, marking 2026 as its centennial year. Being just a quarter-mile south from the Dallas Zoo, residents can sometimes receive notifications of a rare escape or zoonapping. “If you do not like wildlife, then it’s probably not the neighborhood for you,” says Joan Bouldin, who has lived in her Beckley Club home for nearly 40 years. Alicia Quintans, who moved to the neighborhood in the ’90s, remembers one home that she describes as being like a farm. “ When the DART came in ’95, they tore that house down, and I guess those people got good money and moved,” she says. “I’m not sure, but they had little pigs that would run out in the street and all kinds of chickens. If you look, I think there’s the width of the house still there, but then all the rest of the property they had it sort of fenced in for animals.” What’s less rare these days is spotting an array of blues and greens of the local peacocks that also happen to live in the neighborhood. The wild birds have strutted Beckley Club Estates for decades. “The peacocks were not roaming free when I moved here,” Bouldin recalls. “I would say they kind of expanded their territory in the probably last 20 years.” A l l e n Ke i t h , p re s i d e n t o f t h e Beckley Club Estates neighborhood association, says that he was told the peacocks became neighbors in the ’70s or ’80s. “ The first time I saw a peacock fly, I was flabbergasted,” says Jessica Donnelli Godwin, who joined Beckley Club in 2019. She first discovered the peafowl after driving through the neighborhood months before she bought her home and stopping to ask neighbors
about them, who graciously complied along with sharing more about the monthly happy hours and progressive dinners held in the community. “I’d lived in the neighborhood for probably at least a year before I saw one actually fly, and I don’t know that it ever got air,” she says. “I feel like it just went from the roof of the house down, because they’re huge, and you feel like they’re so heavy that they can’t even support their bodies.” While the draw of peacocks may be what outsiders know about Beckley Club Estates best, the peafowl weren’t what first brought people to the neighborhood. B e c k l e y C l u b E states was developed in the 1920s by Sydney A. Temple, Sr. as a secluded community built around three man-made lakes: Lake Helen, Lake Junior and Lake Placid. Hints of the new project were published in the May 1 0 , 1 9 2 5 , e d i t i o n of The Dallas Morning News, describing Temple’s newest venture in real estate to be “the most unusual, most unique, most distinctive real estate subdivision ever offered in Dallas.” When the project was eventually revealed in the paper as Beckley Club, highlights included thousands of native trees, permanently paved streets and the conveniences of installed sewer, water, gas and lights. Every homeowner received membership to the private Beckley Fishing, Bathing and Boating Club on Lake Helen. The development featured a clubhouse and sales office designed in the style of a Japanese pagoda situated on an island of Lake Helen that could be reached by footbridge or by boat.
Eventually, the City chose to dynamite a hole in the dam on Cedar Creek that facilitated the formation of the three lakes. “One of the neat things about the neighborhood is the variety of houses that you see and with that, the variety of residents,” Bouldin says. Some of the home styles within B e ck l e y C l u b i n cl u d e Tu d o r Re vival, Spanish Eclectic and ranch. S e e v e r s Av e n u e h o l d s c o tt a g e s that include stonework with sun-
“PEOPLE ARE JUST SO FRIENDLY. THERE’S THIS SENSE OF COMMUNITY HERE THAT’S UNLIKE ANYWHERE ELSE.” burst and floral patterns. One of the three named homes, Ramona Gates, is located there. The other two named homes located in the neighborhood are Casa Siesta and Coral Gables. Another unique feature found i n B e ck l e y C l u b i s t h e o n e -l a n e bridges, which resident Quintans expressed a desire to preser ve as the neighborhood is on the waiting list to go through the conservation district process. “It’s just so important because it’s
SEPTEMBER 2026 oakcliff.advocatemag.com
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Courtesy of Allen Keith.
just one of those things that makes you know you’re in an unusual neighborhood,” Judith Robbins says. Robbins herself has a plethora of unusual stories about her time in the neighborhood, including how she came to be a Beckley Club neighbor. When she was looking for a home, she had a specific vision in mind: a breakfast room with two corner cabinets that would be painted a rust color. And the Beckley Club home she found and bought in 1988 had exactly that. Eventually, her best friend bought a home in the neighborhood from a hospital bed, just a day after Robbins mentioned it to her (and without informing her husband). At another point in time, she kept a close eye on 337 Appian Way as the estate saw an array of activity. She describes that crime watch was booming at the time. “They even had arsonists living there, and they had 20-some odd people in there that I counted at one time. They had prostitution as well as drugs in there,” Robbins says. She counted and reported license plate
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after license plate, so much so that the police assigned her an officer, Michael Sillemon, who donned gold chains and gold rings and a gold watch. Finally, one day the nightmare was over. The troublemaking neighbor was caught. Sillemon told Robbins to get the chain and lock to keep the other 20-something folks out. “He said, ‘You better run because come two o’clock, pencil hits the desk, and I’m out of here,’” she says. By the time she returned to lock the home, the squad car was gone. It turns out, he was playing both sides and recruiting out of the home, according to Robbins. “When I would call and say the house is full, you need to go in there,” she says. “He’d go in there, and he’d say, ‘I can either take you downtown and book you, or you can go to work for me.’” Sillemon was later convicted of conspiracy to rob banks, and Robbins bought the 337 Appian Way home herself to fix it up. Robbins is clearly very invested in her
community’s well-being. She’s also invested in the history of her home. She found a son of the original owners, Ernie Schoen, and he offered the original blueprints of her house. He came the next day to deliver them, a quick drop-off turning into a long visit. “They stayed for six hours, but he stood down in the living room, and I said, ‘Ernie, what are you thinking?’ Because he was staring in the corner,” Robbins says. “He said, ‘You see that little raised thing there?’ He said, ‘I had two of my buddies from the military. They were with me that day,’ and he said, ‘We were standing right here in the living room when we heard that Pearl Harbor had been bombed from that radio,’ and he said, ‘I was just reliving that.’” Paul Morrison is another longtime resident. He says the first two years of his life were spent at his grandpa’s house on South Beckley Avenue, with his parents later buying a property on South Shore Drive to have their house built. “And once it was completed, they got out of Grandpa’s house and moved down
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The peafowl of the neighborhood are not pets, but are instead wild birds that the neighborhood collectively watches over. Photography by Victoria Hernandez.
here to what was a muddy dead end really,” Morrison says. “The pavement on the street stopped immediately past our driveway, before the driveway at 240 and 227. And when I was still real little, the City came in and started paving that circle.” He eventually bought his home in the neighborhood in 1983. While many are longtime residents, others came more recently in the 2020s, like Godwin and Keith, which certainly highlights the unique make-up of residents. “People are just so friendly. There’s this sense of community here that’s unlike anywhere else,” Keith says. “And my friends too, who don’t live here, it was like, ‘You’ve thrived since you moved down here.’ I love my neighbors.” “It’s something magical about this place,” Robbins chimes in. Godwin describes Beckley Club in a similar manner to Robbins. “I don’t even know what it is. It’s almost like a spirit,” she says. “This spirit of person that this neighborhood attracts.”
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fo o d
M O O DY C O C K TA I L S & PIZZA PUB The team behind well-known Dallas pubs brings a new concept to West Davis Street Story by LESLIE CHATMAN | Photography by KATHY TRAN
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O N A N Y G I V E N N I G H T A LO N G W EST DAV I S STREET, the rhythmic hum of Oak Cliff’s walkable dining scene is easy to catch. But step through the threshold of Kilmac’s, the newly minted cocktail and pizza den sitting right next door to Old Monk Oak Cliff, and the frequency shifts entirely. For Pubsmith — the hospitality group behind Dallas institutions like The Old Monk, Spider Murphy’s and The Skellig — Kilmac’s represents a dramatic, three-years-inthe-making pivot. Rather than replicating another European tavern with endless beer taps and brass footrests, co-owners Feargal McKinney and Charles Reis, alongside general manager Cameron Westmoreland, have created something far more intimate. “For us, it doesn’t feel crazy different than other places that we have done, but it was certainly the most creative process we’ve had in a long time,” Reis says. “It was a lot of firsts. Our first time pushing cocktails this far, having things like egg whites on the menu, smoking drinks and doing pizza.” The origin of Kilmac’s is tied directly to the history of West Davis Street itself. While Pubsmith was in the middle of building out Old Monk Oak Cliff next door, the adjacent space became available. When the team stepped inside to take a look, they instantly recognized its built-in character. The building previously belonged to the late Ron Patterson, a beloved neighborhood personality who utilized the property as his personal sanctuary. “When we first walked the space, he had it set up as his man cave,” Reis recalls. “He had a pool table, a ping pong table, a big projection TV, a bar in the corner and art deco pieces hanging from the walls and the ceiling. But the biggest thing we heard from neighbors was how Ron would roll up the garage door, sit inside with a drink and invite anyone walking by to come in, smoke a cigar and have a drink with him.” Retaining that welcoming neighborhood spirit became a core pillar of the design process. The team kept the original cinder blocks and overhead garage door intact, layering in rich wood paneling, warm sconces, central tin ceilings and a low-slung leather couch. They even preserved the original residential footprint in an unexpected way: Kilmac’s bustling kitchen is built directly inside what used to be Ron Patterson’s bedroom. His grandson has since visited the bar several times, sharing family stories and watching his grandfather’s memory live on in a space built for the neighborhood. Kilmac’s is designed to offer two distinct, complementary experiences in one space. Inside, the energy is intentionally moody and cloistered. The lighting is kept low, candlelight flickers across small tables, and the central bar serves as the room’s visual centerpiece. It feels like an urban hideaway built for late-night conversations. Stepping through to the patio, the mood opens up dramatically into a sprawling outdoor oasis designed to double the venue’s capacity.
“In here, it’s a dark bar with candles where you can hide away from the world for a bit,” Reis explains. “Then you transition outside, to a casual West Texas or Hill Country feel — crushed granite, fire pits, a massive live oak tree and cedar fencing. Because it’s tucked behind a stone wall, it has a secret garden feel.” Adding to that outdoor charm is a restored 1960s vintage Airstream trailer, fully outfitted as a secondary bar to serve guests spending their evenings under the stars. Pubsmith relied on the expertise of Cameron Westmoreland, an industry veteran with a background at mixology heavyweights like Parliament and Clover Club. Westmoreland approaches drink creation through a culinary lens, drawing inspiration from unexpected flavor pairings. “I base everything on food,” he notes. For example, the Santa Muerte ($17) was based on a dish with peach, serrano hot honey and fresh lemon. Another example, the lemon-poppy sour ($16) came about after he found a lemon poppyseed scone at a coffee shop. “I instantly thought: that’s a cocktail,” Westmoreland says. The Smoked Guinness Old Fashioned ($17) is a clever homage to Pubsmith’s pub roots. The team reduces Guinness down with sugar to create a rich, caramelized simple syrup loaded with malted barley notes, serving as the sweet anchor for a smoked whiskey build. The Freezer Martini ($17), the recipe was born after Reis took a whirlwind 24-hour trip to Brooklyn for a martini convention. Built on an overproof Scottish gin infused inhouse with post-distillation saffron, the drink is softened with a custom vermouth blend and finished with lemon oil to brighten it up. To complement the drink menu, Kilmac’s tapped pizza master Lee Hunsinger (formerly of Cane Rosso and Zoli’s) to consult on a dedicated 12-inch pie program. Built around quality ingredients, the pizza menu features house-made vodka sauce, Calabrian chiles, candied house-pickled jalapeños and Italian sausage directly from Jimmy’s Food Store, the East Dallas institution. “We ran multiple blind taste tests against a bunch of different sausage suppliers,” Reis says. “Jimmy’s won out easily every single time. Beyond the quality, we’ve always had a great relationship with those guys.” When asked for the ultimate Kilmac’s cocktail and food pairing, Westmoreland recommends: pair the spicy, rich Drunken Pepperoni ($19) with the mezcal-laden Santa Muerte ($17), or match the Prosciutto ($22) with the Nouveau Carré ($17). For Pubsmith, opening Kilmac’s following the debut of Old Monk Oak Cliff next door was a massive undertaking. Yet, it underscores the group’s commitment to evolving alongside Dallas’s dining public while respecting the heritage of the neighborhoods they join. Kilmac’s, 814 W. Davis St., 469.677.0075
Hearty toppings of the Prosciutto pizza ($22), includes 18-month prosciutto, blistered grape tomatoes, mozzarella, grana padano, baby arugula and balsamic drizzle. SEPTEMBER 2026 oakcliff.advocatemag.com
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WHO CARES FOR THESE CATS?
Not enough active hands to help community cats
Story by MADELYN EDWARDS
LOSS OF FUNDING. A deficit in the ability to provide shelter animal surgeries. A full-time veterinarian position that remained unfilled. A short-handed staff accruing overtime from working hard in stressful jobs. About 2,600 animals in foster homes and 600 in the shelter. All this was discussed in a well-attended public meeting last June in Lakewood with Dallas Animal Services (DAS) answering questions, mainly from those practicing Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR). Frustrated neighbors talked about being overrun by outdoor cats, trouble accessing TNR resources and feeling like they weren’t being listened to. DAS officials explained they are doing the best they can while managing their resources. Rock meets hard place. “I need a place to go,” East Dallas neighbor Jennifer Woulfe said during the meeting. “I love (Texas Coalition for Animal Protection). I do most of my stuff at TCAP, but there have been times that I have to get there at 3 or 4
18 oakcliff.advocatemag.com SEPTEMBER 2026
o’clock in the morning. I have to wait, and I can’t easily do that. So, for me, I need a place that’s an easier option to go. I’m willing to do it. You have free help right here, free. I’m doing it for free because I know it’s important for the cats. I know it’s important to my community.” Any animal reproducing quickly and unfettered leads to a bigger population with higher risks for “disease transmission, parasites, sanitation concerns, nuisance behaviors,” says Amanda Earl, DAS assistant director of operations. “One of the primary benefits of TNR is that participating cats are vaccinated against rabies,” Earl says. “They’ve been sterilized. They’ve at least been looked at by a veterinarian. They have an ear tip so that we can identify those animals. It does help stabilize colony size. It does help reduce nuisance behaviors, but there are only so many resources.” Almost 8,500 service requests regarding stray cats were placed between August 2023 and September 2025 throughout Dallas but
Dallas Animal Services is proposing updates to the City Code regarding community cats, but this would not add a trap, neuter, return program. Photos courtesy of Dallas Animal Services.
especially in East Dallas, Oak Cliff and southern Dallas, according to a City report. TCAP doesn’t have an affordable spay and neuter clinic in Dallas. The closest locations for our neighbors are in Garland, Allen or Arlington. To participate in TCAP’s Feral Fix Program for specifically wild and unsocialized cats, it is recommended to arrive “well before 8 a.m.” to secure one or more of the 12 slots available (limited to four cats per person or organization). If you miss your chance, you have to try again or schedule an appointment and pay $20, according to TCAP’s website. And not all of these clinics perform feral cat surgeries every weekday. At Spay Neuter Network on South Buckner Boulevard, cats are accepted first-come, firstserved on open surgery days until capacity is reached (limit two cats per person). This service costs the same as for owned cats, unless a Dallas resident has a service request number, in which case the spay or neuter is free and
funded by DAS, according to the clinic’s website. TNRers can get a service request number through 311, but some said at the Lakewood meeting that the process to receive that is inefficient. (Woulfe says TCAP also offers free services for Dallas residents with a service request number.) And no, the SPCA (Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) of Texas, headquartered in Dallas, is currently not accepting trap, neuter, return surgeries, according to its website. Woulfe says SPCA had a TNR program but stopped after the pandemic. Some advocates think Dallas Animal Services should actively participate in TNR. The department calls the practice “the only proven, humane method to control outdoor cat populations” on the City’s website but currently isn’t proposing a City-run TNR program. “We would need the staff support. We would need the funding support. We would need community support. We’d need those partnerships,” Earl says. “We’re constantly leaning on our partners and establishing those partnerships as we can to supplement the resources that we have right now, but the community has to participate.” Put plainly, the department doesn’t have the medical staff to manage those surgeries, she says. Recruiting veterinarians tends to be a challenge since there are less than 40 American Veterinary Medical Association-accredited colleges in the U.S. On top of that, shelter medicine tends to be a niche study, and filling those roles is difficult. Not every vet can manage 30 or more surgeries in a day. Case in point, Dallas Animal Services has had a full-time veterinarian vacancy since last fall. “We can’t compete with private enterprise,” Earl says. “We can’t pay off their student tuition costs that they’ve incurred. We can’t offer them the same salaries and benefits as others because we are a municipal organization.” As of writing this, the department has veterinarians for treatment (one full-time and one temporary part-time), telehealth, and forensics, plus two surgeons, one full-time and one temporary part-time. Compared to the almost 29,000 animals DAS takes in per year, this is a small team, Earl says. They have specialized
roles that include providing intake exams, emergency care, illness and injury treatment, surgeries, and medical support for fosters. Dallas Animal Services also partners with organizations to expand their staff ’s bandwidth just to care for shelter animals, but that’s still not enough to do TNR surgeries. “It’s just not a reality,” Earl says. “It’s not through lack of desire.”
the so-called Team Tabby, in which 1,451 cats were fixed, preventing thousands of kitten births and newborn intakes, according to a City report. TNRers interviewed by the Advocate are mostly sympathetic to DAS’s position and would like to see the department get the resources needed. “Apparently, we need to star t att e n d i n g c i ty c o u n c i l m e e t i n g s a n d being a voice for DAS and for these animals because a lot of people aren’t speaking up,” Woulfe says. Dallas County’s veterinary care accessibility score is 66 out of 100, and, while not the worst, well below that of neighboring counties. DAS is working to help identify where those deser ts are and rebuilding infrastructure to better manage animals in the shelter and outside of it, Earl says. Far Northeast Dallas neighbor Mary German started TNRing on her street before connecting with other neighborhoods, including Oak C liff, Arlington and Grand Prairie. She manages colonies in D a l l a s , G a rl a n d a n d Me s q u i t e , feeding the cats even on special occasions and despite challenges brought on by apartment complex rules. She noticed Hispanic communi ti e s te nde d to re qui re the most help. “There’s a lot of need, not only with the trapping but also getting medical,” German says. Earl says Dallas leadership has been suppor tive, but even in a perfect world, she imagines that ever yone would step up for DAS, including businesses and neighbors. “ We can’ t do it by ourselves,” she says. “We can keep spinning our wheels, we can keep doing sterilizations, we can keep taking the owners’ surrenders, but our most important thing should be to help keep animals in their homes and help provide those resources. But we can’ t be the one that’s providing all the resources. We’re not that big. Our community is huge.” On that point, Earl’s message to those practicing TNR is “keep doing what you do. If we can help, we will.”
“There’s a lot of need, not only with the trapping but also getting medical.”
In our neighborhoods, feline concerns are handled by the community engagement team. Among other tasks, these staffers respond to cat-related calls and evaluate situations, point locals toward resources and aim to educate the public. The City used to have a specific program for unowned cats, but that was discontinued because of budget cuts, Earl says. In the 2024-25 fiscal year, the Community Cat Pilot TNR Program included
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Story by PALOMA RUDNICKI
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A photo of then-Forest Park in a 1911 report titled A City Plan for Dallas: Report of Park Board.
W
hat began in 1888 with only $60 and a d rea m — w h e n a Co l o ra d a n sold the City of Dallas two deer and two mountain lions — has now become both the oldest and largest zoo in Texas. Originally housed in City Park, the zoo grew from the original fo u r a n i m a l s i n 1 8 8 8 t o 27 i n 1 9 1 0. Ru n n i n g o u t o f ro o m i n the city center, it had to move. T h e n e w l o c a t i o n w a s Fa i r Park, the home of the State Fair of Texas. However, the zoo could o n l y s t a y t h e re fo r tw o ye a r s before being crowded out again, t h i s t i m e by t h e eve r- g row i n g S ta te Fa ir. W h ile o u r n e ig hb o r ho o d b e gan as a suburb for the growing middle class and as Dallas began to transform from an agricultural economy to one based in in du stry, so d i d t he zo o. I n 1 9 0 9, t h e C i t y o f D a l l a s had purchased 36 acres of w h a t wa s t h e n ca l l e d M a rsa l i s
Pa r k , p rev i o u s l y k n ow n a s Fo re s t Pa r k . B y 1 9 1 2 , t h e zo o m ove d t o its current location in Oak Cliff and became a growing institution dedicated to educating the p ub l i c o n w ildlife, as opposed to simply housing a collection of animals. According to the 2001 Dallas Zoo Area Land Use Study from the City of Dallas, the land was originally meant to be used as a single-family residential community to house the growing suburban population before it was used by the City to house the zoo. Fro m t h e Oa k C l i ff l o ca t i o n , the Marsalis Park Zoo, as it was t h e n n a m e d , co n t i n u e d to exp a n d u n d e r t h e l e a d e rs h i p o f Zo o Co m m i ss i o n e r Wi l l i a m H . Atwell. Between 1920 and 1925 a l o n e, t h e zo o g re w f ro m 1 6 1 animals to 1,065. By the 1940s, it was one of the 10 largest zoos in the United States. In 1976, the name was officially
c h a n ge d t o t h e D a l l a s Zo o a t Marsalis Park. Over the years, new initiatives have revitalized the zoo for each generation, taking more care for the enrichment and wellbeing of the animals. In 1990, it opened its 25-acre Wilds of Africa expansion. In 2013, it became the first zoo in North America to combine African elephants with zebras, giraffes, impalas, ostriches and guinea fowl into one habitat. In 2017, the underwater Simmons Hippo Outpost opened. Currently, there are plans to expand the zoo. A $119 million, multi-phased effort will include a new African Shorelines exhibit and Safari Trails. Construction is set to begin in October and will fi rst fea t u re Af r i ca n p e n g u i n s and flamingos; eventually, the zo o a i m s t o b r i n g r h i n o s a n d cheetahs to the Dallas public. The construction is scheduled to be com pleted in t h e spring of 2028.
Left: The colored postcard is likely from the 1930s, according to City archivist John Slate. Historical photos courtesy of Dallas Municipal Archives. Animal photography by Lauren Allen. SEPTEMBER 2026 oakcliff.advocatemag.com
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811 N. Oak Cliff Boulevard
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206 S. Edgefield Avenue
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