Half Price Books’ flagship store in Dallas has a new breakfast spot for bookworms.
La Casita, a croissant shop and brunch restaurant that started in Richardson, opened in the former Black Forest Coffee space on August 20, 2024. La Casita Coffee sells espresso, matcha drinks, and the pastries it has become locally famous for: croissants, cruffins, muffins, and the like.
Although La Casita is still operated as a “low-budget start-up,” the kind of shop where you’d find co-owners Maricsa Trejo and Alex Henderson scrubbing, scraping and painting before an opening, the business has become one of the most productive bakeries in Dallas. Their team of more than 100 employees bakes about 5,000 croissants a day, says managing partner Brianna Short.
Name an independent cafe with impressive pastries and it’s probably La Casita. The company now supplies croissants and other baked goods to around 200 cafes, restaurants and hotels.
The company will continue to grow, with plans to open a cafe and bakery in Uptown Dallas in 2024 in the building formerly known as the Richards Group headquarters. They already have a cafe in Rowlett.
Before the end of the year, the co-owners of La Casita plan to transform the cafe into a tiki bar in the evenings. Henderson and Short, who previously worked at the now-closed Small Brewpub in Oak Cliff, are working with bartender Benj Pocta on a menu of tiki cocktails.
“We want to offer people something they’ve never experienced before,” Short said of the cafe, which will become a cocktail bar.
It’s like a game of Clue: La Casita. In the bookstore. With rum punch.
Henderson plans to offer a menu of a dozen dishes, including a whole chicken wrapped in banana leaves. Other dishes on the dinner menu will lean on La Casita’s strength — baked goods — and could include house-made Hawaiian rolls or za’tar pretzels.
La Casita Coffee is located at 5801 E. Northwest Highway (near Half Price Books), Dallas. It is open seven days a week from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. A tiki bar is planned to open in the evenings by mid-fall 2024.
