Fort Worth Restaurant Is Moving – And Taking Its Building Across Town

It’s a slow process – one weeks in the making that’ll take days to complete – but it’s a labor of love.

By Christopher ConnellyOctober 18, 2016 10:42 am, ,

From KERA News

The building itself is fairly small, built in the 1940s of concrete, wood and metal. It’s been the jewel of Fort Worth’s growing Salsa Limón empire.

Now, it’s empty, the last building standing on a block of brown dirt where old shops and restaurants were cleared to make way for the kind of high-end mixed-use development that’s grown up in the fashionable neighborhood.

On Monday, a small crew tunneled under the foundation to assemble a massive frame of painted orange steel beams. Hydraulic jacks will lift the building so it can be rolled onto a flatbed truck, then driven a few miles northwest to its new home on White Settlement Road near the Trinity River.

Moving a building isn’t easy, and it’s not cheap. But for Salsa Limón co-founder Milo Ramirez, it’s worth it, because he loved this building long before he leased it.

Built in the Art Moderne style, which is sort of a streamlined approach to Art Deco, it has a signature long, horizontal window in the front. Over the decades, the building has housed a variety of restaurants and diners. When Ramirez first stepped inside with his sister and co-owner – it was an unremarkable chain sandwich shop.

“And as soon as we walked in, we looked at that panoramic glass, and we thought to ourselves, what an under-use of building. And at that moment, 10 years ago, I desired the building,” Ramirez said.

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