Encanto Pops, a family-owned paleteria in Oak Cliff, is closing Saturday. The shop announced the news on its Instagram account last week.
“We want to take this opportunity to wholeheartedly express our deepest gratitude for your unwavering support and loyalty throughout this incredible journey,” the post said.
Encanto Pops opened in 2016 and is co-owned by siblings Diana, Edith, Paola, and Aureliano Diaz. The shop celebrated its seventh birthday this past July. In 2021 and 2022, it won D Magazine‘s Best of Big D award for best paleta shop, and this past summer I featured it in a list of the best ice cream shops in the city.
Diana says the siblings came to the conclusion that they needed to close the shop this past summer. Paletas are a seasonal treat, and although summers are busy, business gets hard when temperatures drop.
“It makes it hard, having to go through it eight times at this point,” she says. “I think we’re ready for something new.”
The siblings were born in Ciudad Juarez, went to school in El Paso, and reunited in Dallas. They told D Magazine in 2016 that they wanted to start a business in the food industry, so they came together to open Encanto Pops because they grew up eating paletas.
“We’re the family—the house—that always had food, and everyone knew that,” she says. “That has always been what has brought us together. And that’s what we love doing.”
According to Diana, some of the siblings may continue working in the food business. She says she’s thought about going back into advertising, her former career before she pursued Encanto Pops.
Encanto Pops’ menu included refreshing water-based and milk-based paletas with creamy and fruity flavors such as jalapeño-cucumber-lime and avocado mango. Customers often topped their paletas with Chamoy and Tajín for a tart and spicy kick, but dipping a strawberry paleta in chocolate also wasn’t out of the question.
The offerings expanded beyond paletas, though. When I stopped in Wednesday, one customer ordered giant top-handle plastic bags of agua frescas with chunks of fresh fruit. Another ordered a bag of Takis with spicy candy. But the star of the shop was the big freezer in front that contained a rainbow of paletas.
One of the hardest things about closing was hearing customer stories, Diana says. She says she’s watched kids grow up and families expand. And since they’ve announced the closure, regulars have been coming back for one last paleta.
“We don’t even know how to thank the people that have supported us all along,” Diana says. “It’s overwhelming, the love that we’ve received and the support. It’s like, how do you pay them back?”
Let’s give them a great showing this Saturday, Dallas.
831 W. Davis St.
Author
