Dallas restaurateur Shannon Wynne, who closed Lark on the Park in late 2018, has opened a new restaurant in that same spot called Miriam Cocina Latina.

It's a Mexican restaurant. Wynne knows what you're thinking: "We need another Mexican restaurant in Dallas like we need another hole in the head," he says. He thinks this restaurant is different.

Miriam Cocina Latina is named after Miriam Jimenez, Wynne's favorite staffer when she worked at Mesero at Lovers Lane and Inwood Road. Wynne, a restaurateur, isn't involved in Mesero; he used to go eat there and says he enjoyed Jimenez's charisma and charm. She was his first choice when he began brainstorming about what Lark on the Park should become.

"She's the only person worth hunting for," Wynne says.

Miriam will be Wynne's second Mexican restaurant; he also operated a long-gone place called Mexico in Uptown Dallas in the '80s.

Wynne is involved in real estate development and has been a Dallas restaurateur for decades. He operates Meddlesome Moth in the Design District, Mudhen in the Dallas Farmers Market, Bird Cafe in Fort Worth and three restaurants that have expanded across North Texas: Rodeo Goat, Flying Fish and Flying Saucer Draught Emporium.

All of those restaurants have some kind of flying motif in their names. Miriam Cocina Latina doesn't carry that theme. But: "There are some 'flying things' in the interior," Wynne says. (The theme doesn't matter much to him, anyhow, he says.)

He wants his diners to know that "this is Miriam's Mexican restaurant. And I'm her partner." The website lists her as "the boss."

The new restaurant opened May 8, 2019, at 2015 Woodall Rogers Freeway, in Dallas, near Klyde Warren Park. The restaurant won't have Lark's chalkboards on the walls, which featured local artists' work.

"Most all of Lark," he says, "will be RIP."