CEDAR HILL — At the end of this suburban main street, just south of Dallas, stands a plain sign with red letters: Cedar Hill Roller Rink. Behind it is a squat building, a mash of metal and cinder block dinted with age.
On a warm night in February, owner David Candanoza pushes open a heavy blue door to greet skaters. Inside, some 30 teenage girls glide and wobble across the maple floor, gripping each other’s arms and shrieking.
Nostalgia hits hard.A teenage employee doles out beige skates with orange wheels, and skaters toss tennis shoes onto zigzagged carpet. Disco lights bounce off the ceiling. On one end, a trio of arcade games. At the other, a concession stand stocked with soda and candy.
Cedar Hill Roller Rink opened in 1956 — when Elvis Presley’s “Heartbreak Hotel” played on the radio and girls wore poodle skirts — making it one of the oldest, if not the oldest, continuously operating rink in Texas.
“Nothing has changed,” said 36-year-old Bethany Adamcik, who grew up skating at Cedar Hill. This month, she hosted her daughter, Brynlee’s, 13th birthday party at the rink. “It looks the exact same. It smells the exact same.”
Candanoza, 58, grew up skating at Cedar Hill, too. In the 1970s and 80s, his mother would drop him off at the rink to meet up with his friends. Years later, in the early 2000s, by then a single father, he was earning good money selling cars but wanted more time with his children. On a whim, he answered an ad in a newspaper and landed a 30-hour-a-week job at the rink. Candanoza fell in love with the bright lights and cheerful music. A roller rink is a haven, a brief escape from the outside world.
In 2006, after saving enough money for a $50,000 down payment, he bought the rink, becoming its third owner. His own children grew up here, skating laps and working part-time. Regulars call Candanoza “Super Dave,” a moniker he tattooed on his rightbicep.
This is more than a job. This rink is part of their family. When Candanoza’s 28-year-old son Jacob, a Terrell police officer, was killed last year in the line of duty, mourners gathered outside the rink to pray and weep and lift dripping candles to the night sky.
Cedar Hill is one of a dwindling number of roller rinks. In roller skating’s heydey of the 1970s and 80s, more than 100 rinks operated in Texas, according to the Roller Skating Association International. Today, that number has fallen to about 40.
White Rock Skate Center opened in 1973 and became a Dallas institution before closing in 2016. Skateland in Hurst shut down in 2015. Grapevine’s SkateTown, 2021. Communal spaces, gone.
Reasons vary for closures — the high cost of rent, land and supplies, soaring insurance rates, retirement and a not-so-subtle shift in how people spend their free time.
“You see more rinks closing than opening today,” said Billy Thompson, president of the roller skating association. Roller rinks may no longer take on the same outsized role in American entertainment, “but roller skating remains extremely popular.”
“Roller skating was the original social media network. That’s where everyone went to see their friends on a Friday night,” Thompson, who owns two rinks in North Carolina, continued. “There was no texting, no cell phones. There were roller rinks.”
Running a rink — running any small business — is a heavy load. On a given night, Candanoza plays DJ, runs games, passes out skates, serves sodas and cleans the rink.
Last year, the city issued a laundry list of issues Candanoza would need to address to stay open, from major electrical rewiring to floor and foundation repairs, totaling roughly $30,000.
In desperation, he turned to GoFundMe: “I want to continue to serve the community by keeping my business open,” he wrote. “I’m afraid without your help, that will not be possible.” Candanoza wondered if he would be forced to close. Strangers and customers donated more than $8,000, and he began to chip away at the list.
Looking around the rink on a recent afternoon, Candanoza acknowledged it could use a facelift. Each month, it costs about $4,500 to keep the rink running, and that does not count unexpected repairs, a chunk of broken floor or a leak in the ceiling. Still, he is loath to raise prices. How many places offer hours of entertainment for $10? Or a birthday party with unlimited guests for less than $350?
When a historic ice storm knocked out power for days for millions of Texans in 2021, the rink opened as an emergency shelter. Families spread pillows and sleeping bags on the floor and children skated while Candanoza passed out pizzas.
“At one time or another, every kid who grows up in Cedar Hill has skated at the Cedar Hill Roller Rink,” said Patty Bushart, vice president of the Cedar Hill Museum of History. “It’s an institution.”
House rules, if unspoken, have not changed much over the years. The music is clean. On a recent night, teenagers skated to Katy Perry’s “The One That Got Away.” No cursing. No kissing, but hand-holding is allowed. Parents should feel comfortable dropping their children off on a Friday night.
“We’re old school here,” he said. “We don’t want any funny business.”
Perhaps what makes this place special is precisely that: It is frozen in time, a portal. It is not flashy or modern or made for Instagram.
“It feels like home,” said 44-year-old Kena Summerville, who has skated at Cedar Hill for nearly 25 years. On a recent Saturday afternoon, Summerville skated with her 6-year-old niece, Faith, who owns her own custom skates. “You come here to get away. For three hours, you’re free from everything else.”
Yet even here, joy mingles with grief. Outside the rink, a sign reads “I miss you, boy!!!” a bittersweet ode to Candanoza’s son, Jacob. He plans to remove the sign on the one-year anniversary of his eldest child’s death.
The morning after Jacob was killed, Candanoza, shattered by grief, left his home and drove to the only place he could think of: this old rink. He sat in the familiar stillness, numb.
On a recent afternoon, hours before it would open, the rink was quiet. Candanoza sat down and exhaled, looking at the empty maple floor. Slowly, he rose to return to work. The skaters would be here soon.
