To celebrate their 91st anniversary, El Fenix Mexican Restaurant offered their famous cheese enchilada platter for only 91 cents on Wednesday, Sept. 16, at its flagship restaurant Downtown located at 1601 McKinney Ave.

Patrons were lined up out the door and along the side of the restaurant before it opened at 11 a.m. Some were unaware of the 91 cent special and had only come to enjoy the usual Wednesday El Fenix special: the same cheese enchilada plate for $4.99.

The event was so popular last year, when the restaurant offered the platter for 90 cents, that it was made an annual event. The McKinney location even added 45 extra parking spaces this year to accommodate the visitors.

El Fenix’s usually lightning fast service was in rare form for the anniversary – customers received a hot plate of enchiladas almost before the order was out of their mouth. And, of course, Alfred Martinez was on hand to celebrate with customers. The Martinez family opened the first El Fenix in 1918 and the chain only came under new ownership in 2008.

John McBride Jr., a member of the Martinez family, is still the chief operating officer and was walking down the sidewalk outside the restaurant on Wednesday, greeting customers and reminiscing about the restaurant’s history.

McBride mentioned that the oldest standing location is actually in Oak Cliff, on Colorado and Bekley.

“This downtown location was originally across the street,” McBride said,” but when Woodall Rogers widened, we moved over here.”

“This is the El Fenix home base,” a patron replied. “This is the number one.”

“The original one, for years, was open 24 hours a day and we had a ballroom upstairs where we would have parties and dancing, the whole nine yards,” said McBride.

El Fenix has locations in Fort Worth, Arlington, Grapevine, Irving, Lewisville, Mesquite, Addison, Plano, McKinney, and several locations in Dallas.