Before and after pictures of 3302 Swiss Circle, formerly Mrs. Hartgraves’ Café. Photos courtesy of Robert Abtahi.

The crescent-shaped building at 3302 Swiss Circle used to be Mrs. Hartgraves’ Café, where Bonnie Parker worked before meeting Clyde Barrow and leading a life of crime. 

That space has been renovated into offices for criminal defense law firm Texas Defenders.

According to an article in the Oak Cliff Advocate, Parker worked in the cafe between 1928 and 1929. Since the cafe closed in the early 1930s, the space has been a TV/stereo store, a tire shop, a bus drivers club and Alcoholics Anonymous/Narcotics Anonymous offices.

The Swiss Circle space was renovated in the mid-2010s to make way for a new restaurant there, but that plan fizzled out. City records indicate that Fortis MMA had a certificate of occupancy for its headquarters there a few years ago.

Texas Defenders moved into the space in the latter half of 2025. Robert Abtahi and David Payma, both of whom have lived in East Dallas at some point in their lives, came across the location while they were looking for office space. Abtahi said it had been vacant for a while.

“It’s a piece of Dallas history,” Abtahi said. “I thought it was a great opportunity to save a piece of history and really be stewards of it for the future. People talk about buying their forever home. David and I talked about this being our forever office.”

Renovating and preserving the building involved plenty of trial and error. They learned that sandblasting could ruin the building’s integrity, and they tried to restore the old brick but couldn’t. They kept and polished the historic concrete and replaced rotting wood and broken windows.

Inside Texas Defenders’ offices at 3302 Swiss Circle. Photo courtesy of Robert Abtahi.

“I always joke that if you read a bunch of Robert Wilonsky columns, they make historic preservation seem romantic,” Abtahi said. “This is our first endeavor doing something like this. It was more like an onion. Every layer we peeled back made you cry.”

There are challenges to working in the old building, like the struggle to get WiFi, making sound adjustments to prevent echoing and decorating the oddly shaped building in a way where furniture doesn’t appear crooked. Keeping the old concrete also means the floor isn’t completely levelled. 

Despite the difficulty, Payma said the end result was worth the effort.

“It’s cool to come to work every day in a building that has so much rich history instead of just a new office building,” he said. 

And neighbors have been pleased with Texas Defenders’ renovation of the space, which had previously been somewhat of an eyesore.

“People are very excited to welcome us to the neighborhood,” Abtahi said. “We’ve had folks who live on Swiss Avenue come by and just thank us, and random people will knock on our door … and  we’re like, ‘Oh, you’re here for an appointment.’ They’re like, ‘No, I just want to see what’s here.’ I think it has a place in people’s hearts, and we’re just grateful that we get to have a part of that now.”

At some point, Abtahi wants to find a way to honor the memory of Bonnie Parker in the space, but when he talked with the Lakewood/East Dallas Advocate last month, he wasn’t sure yet what that would look like.