Cantina Cadillac owner plans to reopen after bar in Fort Worth Stockyards damaged by fire

A building that houses a popular Stockyards bar caught fire Saturday night, causing severe damage to the historic structure, according to the Fort Worth Fire Department.

Dozens of fire crews responded to the Cantina Cadillac bar, at 124 W. Exchange Ave., starting about 8:15 p.m. Saturday. Engine 12 was returning from another call when firefighters saw flames engulfing the back of the nightclub building.

Everyone was safely evacuated from the area, and no injuries were reported, officials said. About 15 people were inside the bar at the time, according to the owner.

“Several obstacles, including a poor water supply, traffic control and crowded parking lots hindering truck placement, all factored into fighting this fire,” the fire department said in a news release. “There were also hundreds of onlookers crowding the streets during a robust Saturday night in the Stockyards.”

Jay Hester, the owner of the bar for the last 40 years, said he was celebrating a birthday with family and friends at Riscky’s Barbecue in the Stockyards on Saturday night when he saw the fire. He walked toward it in time to see the third floor, which he said houses an Airbnb, collapse onto the second floor.

“I thought, ‘Well, this is the end,’ “ Hester told the Star-Telegram Sunday afternoon. “But after seeing it, I think we can fix it.”

The first floor of the building is darkened not just by the lack of electricity, but from the burns on the ceiling, walls and floors. On Sunday afternoon, water used to extinguish the blaze the night before had turned the air in the bar almost sticky with humidity. The scent of stale beer that characterizes many of the bars in the Stockyards was replaced with that of burnt wood and an almost sweet, barbecue smell.

Hester said the thing he was most worried about are the historical pieces used to decorate the bar. Photos, like those signed by Willie Nelson and Todd Murray, were damaged (and possibly ruined) not by the fire but by the water necessary to combat it. Other artifacts in the bar he described as being part museum survived, like the bedazzled spur — it hangs over the dance floor — that Hester said was used in the movie “Rhinestone Cowboy.”

Crews from neighboring cities, including River Oaks, Saginaw, Sansom Park and Lake Worth, were called in to help battle the blaze. The roof collapsed, and officials said the structure of the building at the corner of West Exchange and Ellis avenues might be compromised.

The building was built in 1908, according to the Tarrant County Historic Resources Survey. It operated as a hotel and boarding house upstairs with a furniture store downstairs for much of the 20th century and was a Masonic fraternal lodge for 20 years. It opened as a bar in 1983.

The cause of the fire is under investigation. Gas from a broken line caused the fire to grow and made it difficult to extinguish, officials said.

The fire went to three alarms before it was declared under control after two hours, the department said.

“Firefighters contained the fire to the century old (and very loved) Cadillac Bar and were able to prevent any extensive damage to other historic buildings,” officials said in the release.

The fire did appear to cause some surface damage to the exterior of the bar next door, the Thirsty Armadillo. And the necessity to cut power to the building to fight the fire had several other neighboring Stockyards businesses closed for the day Sunday, with notes taped to windows and doors.

But, from the outside, the damage of the fire did not appear to extend to the interior of any neighbors.

Hester said as the fire burned Saturday night, he thought all hope was lost for the building that has stood in Fort Worth for more than a century. He had tickets to a Clint Black concert at Billy Bob’s a few blocks away, and decided he would still go.

“What are you gonna do in a situation like this?” Hester asked. “Sit and watch it burn? No, we went and drank our sorrows away listening to Clint play.”

After seeing the way firefighters managed to limit the damage from the fire, though, Hester said he has no doubt he’ll rebuild and expects that in about six months he’ll be hosting a grand reopening.