After a year in Fort Worth, Merritt adds redfish, more to Fixture

Chef Ben Merritt named his Fort Worth grill Fixture Kitchen for a reason.

It’s meant to become a neighborhood fixture on West Magnolia Avenue.

A year after opening, Fixture might be living up to its name.

When other restaurants took the holiday off Sunday, Fixture served a busy brunch crowd plenty of thick-cut beet fries, chicken-and-rosemary waffles or tri-tip beef with green chile-cheese grits.

Lunches are busier, with hospital-district diners coming for the healthy apple-orange kale salad or “hearty fields” bowl with braised farro.

Or at least, they think about that.

Then they order the Angus chuck cheeseburger on a kolache bun with spicy pickles, bloody mary-seasoned ketchup and fresh-cut shoestring fries.

Merritt has seen other restaurants bolt to a fast start. He worked for Dallas chef Stephan Pyles and was the first chef at Tim Love’s Woodshed Smokehouse.

“Fixture is gradually gaining, and that’s what we want,” he said. “You might think a restaurant would really want the door knocked down [from crowds], but I remember that pain at Woodshed. We want Fixture to keep building.”

If you have only come for the chicken-and-waffles or just to look around at the cozy West Magnolia Avenue location, then come back for the pan-seared salmon with farro, the blackened redfish with jalapeño-chorizo succotash, or the fried duck wings. (The redfish will come back on the October seasonal menu.)

“We’re finally starting to get the hospital workers and doctors in for lunch, and we have the menu choices,” Merritt said.

Since Fixture opened, he’s added children’s and gluten-free menus.

Oh — and a fiancee.

“Right now, I’m a busy man,” he said jokingly.

Fixture is open for lunch and dinner Tuesdays through Saturdays, brunch Sundays at 401 W. Magnolia Ave., next to Spice and three blocks east of Brewed; 817-708-2663, fixturefw.com.

Breakfast watch

Another “better breakfast”-lunch-coffee restaurant is a few weeks away.

Florida-based First Watch bought out the Colorado-based The Egg and I locations and is redecorating them in earth tones and soft woods, making them feel more like a comfy coffee cafe and less like a chain diner.

The west Fort Worth location in the Village at Camp Bowie has a bit of both worlds: It’s been recast in First Watch decor, but still serves The Egg and I’s raspberry-and-blueberry “patriot waffle,” biscuits and gravy and traditional breakfast standards.

If you’re curious, several Dallas locations already have been changed.

The Ridglea location is on the Bernie Anderson Avenue side of the Village; 6333 Camp Bowie Blvd, Suite 280, 817-731-3447; theeggandirestaurants.com or coming soon to firstwatch.com/

Chicken-fried deal

Coming next week to Theresa’s Dixie House Cafes in Fort Worth, Euless and Saginaw: $4.99 chicken-fried chicken platters on Wednesdays.

Dixie House has a $4.99 chicken-fried steak platter on Mondays, and that’s helped build dinner business for the homespun cafes featuring a choice of 10-15 cakes and pies.

Theresa’s Dixie House is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner weekdays and Saturdays, breakfast and lunch Sundays at three Fort Worth locations on East Belknap Street, East Lancaster Avenue or South Hulen Street, plus on Texas 156 in Saginaw and on Texas 183 in Euless; dixiehousecafes.com.

This story was originally published September 6, 2016 at 11:02 AM with the headline "After a year in Fort Worth, Merritt adds redfish, more to Fixture."