Hall Pass

Hall Pass

Food halls are spreading all over the country, and now there’s one in Fort Worth.

BY ERIC GRIFFEY PHOTOS BY AMANDA MARIE LACKEY

A table of two young couples sat equidistant between a sleek metal craft cocktail bar and a small stage occupied by a squeezebox-guitar duo that was serenading the cavernous room. Each of the four diners at the table was sampling an entirely different style of fare: pizza, poke, burgers, and barbecue. The Food Hall at Crockett Row was teeming with people on this weekend evening.

The recently opened Food Hall houses 12 different restaurants, ranging in variety from cupcakes and waffles to lobster rolls and shawarma. The 16,000-square-foot hall is open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and, thanks to the Knife Bar, you can also order up a specialty cocktail. Aside from sleeping in your own bed, there’s almost no good reason to leave.

Even in this unprecedented era of growth in Fort Worth, it’s unusual to see 12 restaurants open at the same time. All of them sharing the same address would have seemed unthinkable even just a few years ago.

Unlike food courts made up of fast food chains, food halls typically mix local artisan restaurants, butcher shops, and other food-oriented boutiques under one roof. In this new age of restaurant economics, in which soaring rent prices in hot neighborhoods and a crowded market make opening a brickand-mortar eatery increasingly difficult, food halls represent the same kind of low-cost, high-visibility venture that food trucks and pop-up restaurants embody.

Diners at the Food Hall have 12 lunch options, including poke, burgers, barbecue, and deli fare.

Food halls have been around for years, especially in Europe, but the concept is becoming increasingly popular in the United States as consumers demand healthier and better-tasting “quick casual” food options in enter- taining environments. The number of food halls operating in the United States is expected to exceed 200 in 2019, about double the number that were open in late 2016, according to national real estate company Cushman & Wakefield. That represents a 700-percent increase since 2010.

At the local Hall, the list of restaurants features a few chefs/ restaurateurs with Fort Worth roots, including Victor Villarreal, who mans the kitchen at his fancy personal pizza concept, Abe Froman’s of Fort Worth; former Grace chef Joshua Harmon, whose Butler’s Cabinet purveys upscale deli food and sells freshly made bread, gourmet coffee, and boutique groceries; former TCU football star David Hawthorne, who opened Not Just Q, a Texas-Kansas City hybrid barbecue eatery; and two more TCU grads, Sophia Karbowsky and Austin Patry, who are the minds behind acai bowl/smoothie shop Rollin’ and Bowlin’.

Abe Froman’s of Fort Worth is local chef Victor Villarreal’s gourmet pizza eatery.

Other Hall vendors include Aina Poke Co, food truck lobster-roll impresarios The Dock, elotes bar EB2, Gigi’s Cupcakes, savory and sweet waffle merchants Press Waffle Co., Shawarma Bar, and Val’s Cheesecake. Parking is available at several surrounding garages –– all of the vendors validate.

Perhaps the best-known chef to set up shop in the Hall is Top Chef alumnus John Tesar, whose Knife Burger has been critically lauded all over the state. Tesar could likely open a brick-and-mortar place anywhere in this town, but he chose the Food Hall as his Fort Worth beachhead after he was approached by representatives from Hospitality Alliance, the company that owns the hall.

Tesar: “Even though I’m established, I don’t take for granted that people know who I am and what I do.”

“I thought it was a good entry point for us,” he said over the phone. “It was an easy, low-cost way to get into the market and get ourselves a following. We have other plans to build freestanding buildings for Knife and build it out, not as big as [gourmet burger fast-food chain] Shake Shack, but something maybe regionally. It’s part of a business plan, so even though I’m established, I don’t take for granted that people know who I am and what I do. I think it’s more important that your product speak for yourself rather thanyour time on television or being notorious.”

Chef Joshua Harmon’s Butler’s Cabinet is open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

For Chef Joshua Harmon, who manned the spatula at Grace and Keller eatery Milk & Honey, Butler’s Cabinet marks his return to Fort Worth after cementing his reputation at critically acclaimed Dallas eatery Independent Bar + Kitchen. He, like Tesar, thought the Hall presented a good opportunity to test his often-experimental menu in this market. Both his staff and the Food Hall’s managers have learned and adapted to each other, he said. Harmon referred to himself as the “black sheep” of the hall, thanks to some of his far-out ingredients and methods. “I remember in our second week, we broke down a whole pig in the back room,” he said. “That surprised people, but we weren’t going to compromise what we do because we’re in a food hall.”

Choose your own toppings at Chef Kevin Nguyen Ho’s Aina Poke Co.

Tesar, whose Knife Burger also appears in Plano’s Legacy Food Hall, added that Fort Worth has been the most receptive and complementary audience for his burger concept. He said that Fort Worth’s enthusiastic reception to Heim Barbecue and Catering, a thriving brick-and-mortar enterprise that started out as a food truck, was an inspiration.

The Korean deviled-egg salad at Butler’s Cabinet features dill, capers, sesame seeds, fried shallots, horseradish, cane syrup, and a drizzle of Furikake.

In the coming weeks, Harmon’s kitchen will feature a sandwich designed by a guest chef, and a portion of the proceeds from sales will benefit a local charity. He said chefs Gino Rojas of Revolver Taco Lounge, Kevin Martinez of Tokyo Cafe, and Quincy Wallace from Fred’s Texas Café have already agreed to participate.

“I thought maybe we could start with a food hall, then move on to a brick-and-mortar, and then eventually open a nice steakhouse,” he said. “I always thought Fort Worth was more down-to-earth. With all the money in Highland Park and the Dallas suburbs going north, there are a lot of pretenders. It’s a different attitude here. Fort Worth is more a family town.”

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