UPDATED: Pepe & Mito’s to open Pepe’s Ranch in Deep Ellum

Home-cooking with a Mexican twist in the old Velvet Hookah space.

Floyd Largent

DALLAS — Pepe & Mito's, the long-standing Tex-Mex restaurant in Deep Ellum, is about to get a sibling right down the street: Called Pepe's Ranch, it'll open in the old Velvet Hookah space at Main and Crowdus, and will serve "home-cooking with a Mexican twist," says Sandy Rojas, who's opening the place with her husband Pedro.

[UPDATE: The space opens around Christmas.]

"We're going to take some of those recipes Pedro had -- my husband just loves to cook," she says. "We already cook a lot of stuff here, and the menu cannot grow anymore, we have too much already."

For starters, they'll do chicken-fried steak, and an interesting sandwich that Sandy calls a "blackened" chicken torta.

"We're doing a fish plate, and probably a steak, and we're definitely going to have the Pepe's Burger at the Ranch," she says. "That was so good when we introduced it at Pepe & Mito's, but it swamped the kitchen every time it got ordered, so we took it off the menu."

They're also going to do breakfast -- "an all-American breakfast but also migas and chorizo huevos, too, Mexican plus American," Sandy says.

While Pepe & Mito's sits on the edge of Deep Ellum, Pepe's Ranch will be smack in the middle. The news that Dada has opened a new small bar next-door as well as the imminent opening of a Cajun bar-restaurant called The Free Man is giving Deep Ellum yet more critical mass.

"Pepe & Mito's has been open for 17 years -- we're Deep Ellum fans, we love the people and the neighborhood; why would we want to open anywhere else?" she says.

They're giving the space what she calls "a little spit and shine," including power-washing the vintage brick walls, and the use of some intriguing recycled materials.

"We used wood from an old barn they were going to knock down, so we recycled the wood for the bar area," she says. "We feel like it fits with Deep Ellum, and yet it has a real old country feel."