A trio of restaurants in Dallas' Design District, including a gourmet Mexican restaurant that's been open a decade, have all closed.

The Mexican restaurant is El Bolero, opened by restaurateur Richard Ellman in 2015.

Also closed:

• Pakpao, an Asian restaurant, also from Ellman
• Shodo, a Japanese sushi restaurant that Ellman opened in 2023

Ellman did not respond to inquiries. But notices were posted on the front door, stating that the premises had been secured as a result of a default on the lease.

A spokesperson for the landlord said that all three locations had been shuttered, and that the spaces were already being shown to potential tenants.

"We don't know what [Ellman]'s plans are but these locations are definitely closed, and we've already received a number of interested calls," the spokesperson said.

The restaurants' phone numbers have been disconnected, and it is no longer possible to make reservations online.

All three restaurants were part of Route 62 Hospitality, a group Ellman founded in 2022, on the ashes of Apheleia Restaurant Group, which he originally founded with his ex-wife in 2000.

El Bolero was a revelation when it opened with innovative Mexan food and craft cocktails in a brightly colored and airy setting. It was and a popular destination for office worker lunches and apres-work happy hours and notably, an early restaurant settler in the Design District — opening at a time when the Design District was not yet on the dining radar, followed by restaurants such as FT33, Sassetta, and WheelHouse (all of which have since closed).

It was sufficiently popular that Ellman opened a second location at 2650 N. Fitzhugh Ave., in the then-new B & F Flats mixed-use development, in December 2017; and a third location in Fort Worth, which opened in 2019 in the one-time Tillman's Roadhouse space. Both closed during the pandemic.

Pakpao was their casual concept featuring regional Thai cuisine. They opened the original next door to Oak in 2013; a location at Preston Hollow Village which they opened 2015; and Pakpao in West Plano Village which they opened in 2016, but closed in 2017.

Shodo, a Japanese restaurant doing sushi with an accompanying omakase room, was just the latest restaurant in a location that had previously been home to other Ellman concepts such as Oak and Wits.

Ellman has had many concepts over the years, starting out on McKinney Avenue with a high-end restaurant called Belly & Trumpet, followed by Oak, a high-end restaurant that opened with great fanfare in 2012 at 1628 Oak Lawn Ave. For many years, it was the toast of the town, but it closed during the pandemic scrum in 2021.

Ellman went on to replace Oak with Wits, a steakhouse. Which then was replaced by Shodo, a Japanese concept serving sushi with a companion omakase room.

In the intervening years, Ellman also opened two short-lived concepts: a burger place called Royale Burgers; and Merchant House, a restaurant-bar on Maple Avenue.

Some of the challenges his restaurants faced were due to bigger problems such as issues with seemingly good neighborhoods like the West 7th District in Fort Worth and downtown Dallas, as well as the pandemic.

He also tried a steakhouse, Hawthorn Sushi, Seafood & Steak in the AT&T Discovery District in downtown Dallas, but that, too, was short-lived.