{"id":501622,"date":"2026-01-08T15:40:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T15:40:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/501622\/"},"modified":"2026-01-08T15:40:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T15:40:12","slug":"law-firm-spruces-up-historic-cafe-where-bonnie-parker-once-worked-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/501622\/","title":{"rendered":"Law firm spruces up historic cafe where Bonnie Parker once worked"},"content":{"rendered":"

That space has been renovated into offices for criminal defense law firm\u00a0Texas Defenders<\/a>.<\/p>\n

According to an\u00a0article in the\u00a0Oak Cliff Advocate<\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n

The Swiss Circle space was renovated in the mid-2010s to make way for a new restaurant there, but\u00a0that plan fizzled out<\/a>.\u00a0City records<\/a>\u00a0indicate that\u00a0Fortis MMA<\/a>\u00a0had a certificate of occupancy for its headquarters there a few years ago.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a piece of Dallas history,\u201d Abtahi said. \u201cI 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Renovating and preserving the building involved plenty of trial and error. They learned that sandblasting could ruin the building\u2019s integrity, and they tried to restore the old brick but couldn\u2019t. They kept and polished the historic concrete and replaced rotting wood and broken windows.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Inside Texas Defenders\u2019 offices at 3302 Swiss Circle. Photo courtesy of Robert Abtahi.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always joke that if you read a bunch of Robert Wilonsky columns, they make historic preservation seem romantic,\u201d Abtahi said. \u201cThis is our first endeavor doing something like this. It was more like an onion. Every layer we peeled back made you cry.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2019t appear crooked. Keeping the old concrete also means the floor isn\u2019t completely levelled.<\/p>\n

Despite the difficulty, Payma said the end result was worth the effort.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s cool to come to work every day in a building that has so much rich history instead of just a new office building,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

And neighbors have been pleased with Texas Defenders\u2019 renovation of the space, which had previously been somewhat of an eyesore.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are very excited to welcome us to the neighborhood,\u201d Abtahi said. \u201cWe\u2019ve had folks who live on Swiss Avenue come by and just thank us, and random people will knock on our door \u2026 and\u00a0 we\u2019re like, \u2018Oh, you\u2019re here for an appointment.\u2019 They\u2019re like, \u2018No, I just want to see what\u2019s here.\u2019 I think it has a place in people\u2019s hearts, and we\u2019re just grateful that we get to have a part of that now.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u00a0Lakewood\/East Dallas Advocate\u00a0last month, he wasn\u2019t sure yet what that would look like.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"That space has been renovated into offices for criminal defense law firm\u00a0Texas Defenders. According to an\u00a0article in the\u00a0Oak…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":501623,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5135],"tags":[5229,1596,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-501622","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-dallas","10":"tag-texas","11":"tag-tx","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-united-states-of-america","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","16":"tag-us","17":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115860237451585582","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=501622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501622\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/501623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=501622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=501622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=501622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}