This story was updated on Nov, 5, 2018 after a second Cafe Express closed in Dallas.
Cafe Express closed two restaurants in Dallas in about a month: one at the corner of Mockingbird Lane and Central Expressway, at Mockingbird Station; and another on McKinney Avenue, in Uptown.
CultureMap reports that the Uptown Dallas closure was one of the "final details of the company's restructuring plan."
The Mockingbird Station and Uptown Dallas restaurant closures follow the February 2018 shuttering of a Cafe Express at the Shops at Legacy in Plano, according to Community Impact, and the August 2018 closure of one in Southlake, reports the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
The Uptown Dallas restaurant is technically closed for a second time: It temporarily closed in 2015 while a 20-story high-rise was built in its place; it reopened after a $2 million redo in early 2018.
In a statement from Cafe Express COO Bobby Jaramillo on the closure of that high-dollar, recently renovated space, he says the closures are an effort "to make the brand more profitable, all with the objective of growing it again." In early October, he explained the Mockingbird Station closure as "a tough decision, but the right decision."
He went on to say that other closures in Austin, Houston and Dallas would allow Cafe Express "to focus on our performing restaurants and we have engaged a firm to help us with this restructure."
The closures of two Dallas restaurants leave just one Cafe Express in North Texas, at Lovers Lane and Inwood Road. It remains open, and a spokeswoman says it is not in jeopardy of closing. It's also expected to be renovated, but there is no date known yet.
The Texas-based restaurant group is now owned by M. Terry Enterprises and is operated out of Dallas. Closures have been broadly explained as company re-branding, which has included a bigger beer selection, an interior makeover and digital menu boards with photos and videos of food at some of the existing restaurants.
The company launched in 1984 and offered a fast-casual atmosphere that was novel at the time. But Dallas Morning News business reporter Karen Robinson-Jacobs notes that Cafe Express didn't grow like its competitors did.
"The brand retains a loyal following, especially at lunch, but has been eclipsed on the growth chart by many of its peers," Robinson-Jacobs wrote in February 2018 in a profile about the company's new owner. "Panera Bread, founded three years after Cafe Express in 1987, has more than 2,000 locations. Corner Bakery, launched in 1991, has nearly 200. Cafe Express has 15, including nine in Houston and five in North Texas." (That number, five, has since whittled to two Cafe Express restaurants locally: on McKinney Avenue and on Lovers Lane, both in Dallas.)
No new tenant has been named in place of Cafe Express in Mockingbird Station yet.
This story was updated at 3:45 p.m. Oct. 2, 2018 with a statement from Cafe Express, and again on Nov. 5.
