End of the road for the Cadillac Bar
Iconic establishment loved by politicians, lawyers shuts down
Once the preferred watering hole of downtown’s movers and shakers, the Cadillac Bar recently closed its doors, another victim of the coronavirus pandemic.
While the bar’s owners say they hope it will rise again one day, albeit in a new location, many of its former clientele are mourning the loss of a place where, “we would repair on many a Friday afternoon for some adult refreshments after a hard week of work,” former Mayor Phil Hardberger said.
Located on South Flores Street, just steps from City Hall and the Bexar County Courthouse, the Cadillac was an oldschool bar and restaurant that for years after opening in 1974 was a favorite haunt of politicians, lawyers, judges and other downtown denizens. They’d go there to celebrate after wins, lick their wounds after losses and on occasion consummate deals political and legal.
And they always could count on seeing friends and colleagues bending elbows beneath the glow of dozens of neon beer signs.
“I practiced law in San Antonio for 12 years, and everybody from the courthouse used to go there,” said Joe Krier, a former
city councilman and CEO of the San Antonio Chamber of Commerce. “It was a local institution. Our second home.”
“So many attorneys have their offices downtown, so it was always a popular place to hold political fundraisers,” said attorney and former City Councilman Roger Perez. “I went to a lot of those there.”
With a back room, an upstairs party room and an outdoor patio, the Cadillac also was a place to bid farewell to departing colleagues, mark birthdays, weddings and other life events, and celebrate Fiesta every spring. While the adult beverages were the main attraction — Hardberger contends it had the best margarita in town — there were plenty of other reasons for the Cadillac’s popularity.
It wasn’t unusual, for example, for there to be business transacted at the bar.
“Most court cases start on Monday,” said Hardberger, who held his victory party at the Cadillac after being elected mayor for the first time in 2005. “So happy hour the Friday before was often your last opportunity to see if you could avoid going to trial.”
It also was a place for healing fresh war wounds. “You’d finish trying a case and then head over to the Cadillac to maybe repair any damage done to your relationship with the opposing attorney,” Hardberger said.
The San Antonio outpost of the Cadillac Bar took its name from the legendary bar of the same name in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico. The first incarnation of that bar, the “little” Cadillac Bar, opened in 1924 on Avenue Vicente Guerrero, the city’s main thoroughfare. In July 1929, owner Achilles Mehault “Mayo” Bessan moved to the “big” Cadillac at Calle Beldén and Avenida Ocampo.
With Pancho Villa’s saddle in the main dining room and a small zoo with penned and leashed monkeys, parrots and several other wild animals in the parking lot, the Cadillac was renowned for its fine seafood and fancy cocktails. It was a favorite destination of college students who could drink legally in Mexico and U.S. tourists who could pop across the border for a night on the town and still be home to go to bed at a decent hour.
According to Bessan’s granddaughter Wanda Cash, the owners of the San Antonio bar had a gentleman’s agreement to open under the same name.
“They paid him for the right to use the name and logo,” said Cash, who lives in the Hill Country and whose memoir, “Pancho Villa’s Saddle at the Cadillac Bar: Recipes and Memories,” is set to be released in December.
While the Nuevo Laredo bar closed in 2010, a victim of cartel violence and the toll it took on over-the-border tourism, there are still outposts operating in Houston, Dallas and Lake Charles, La. (all owned by Landry’s Inc.) and an unaffiliated location in San Francisco.
In addition to San Antonio, Cadillac Bars have closed in New York, Dallas and Kemah.
Gil Coronado recalls the bar being the unofficial San Antonio headquarters for Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign.
“We ate there, we drank there and we decided on their next strategic steps in the campaign there,” said the retired military member who served on Clinton’s transition team after the election. This was all possible, say former customers, because back then, politics wasn’t quite the blood sport it is today.
Coronado agrees that things were more civil back then. “If there was someone from the other party in the bar, you’d be friendly with them even if you disagreed with their politics,” he said.
Joel Perez, a criminal defense lawyer and former prosecutor, compared the scene to a boxing match, where two fighters would duke it out for 15 rounds and then shake hands afterward. “Everyone was professional back then,” he said. “They’d work hard and then come to the bar to relax, have a good time and let off some steam.”
One surprising reason for the bar’s popularity was the multilevel parking garage across the street. The garage was so crowded that, at the end of the day, it would take forever to exit the place, explained former criminal court clerk Morris “Mo” Pena.
“So instead of waiting in line for 30, 40 minutes, people would go to the bar for a few drinks to kill time,” he said. “That’s how I started going.”
In addition, the Cadillac once held the record for making the world’s largest margarita (15,000 gallons). And a scene from the 2000 film “All the Pretty Horses,” starring Matt Damon, was filmed on the outside patio.
Former customers say owners Jesse Medina and his cousin Raul Ledezma made patrons feel extremely comfortable.
“It was like visiting family,” said Carlotta “Lottie” Ochoa, a retired Immigration and Naturalization Service inspector. “Even as a single woman walking into the bar, I always felt very comfortable.”
Even before the pandemic, the Cadillac began to lose some of its luster as downtown’s barroom of choice. The 2009 recession took its toll, as did a loss of parking as the area developed and competition from other bars.
“As the city became more sophisticated and more venues opened, the Cadillac kind of went down in popularity,” Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff said. “Besides, people always seem to like to go to new places.”
Medina said he tried to hang on as long as he could after bars were ordered closed because of the coronavirus. “We’ve been closed six, seven months, and we probably won’t be able to reopen at full capacity until next year,” Medina said.
But though this location is closed for good, Medina said he retains rights to the name and the liquor license and hopes to reopen someday soon. “I want to wait things out,” he said. “I’m pretty sure that when this is all over, there will be plenty of places for sale. That’s the plan.”
This past weekend, the bar held a liquidation sale, disposing of years of memorabilia, from those dozens of neon beer signs to posters, menus, kitchen equipment, even a vintage Singer sewing machine. About 2,000 people came through over the two-day event, according to Katy Robbins, co-owner of Estate Sales by K&D.
The hottest items were those with the Cadillac Bar name on them, and that’s what friends Brenda Trujillo and Amy Rodriguez, who both work at the courthouse, were looking for when they arrived Friday afternoon.
“Unfortunately, we got there too late and it was all gone,” Trujillo said. “We were disappointed because the Cadillac was like a second home to us. We’d joke that we left work at 5 p.m. and would clock in at the Cadillac at 5:05. It’s gonna be missed.”