Grilled-cheese restaurant Tom+Chee to open March 1 in Fort Worth
Tom + Chee, the grilled-cheese/tomato-soup restaurant that sent DFW.com’s Denise Harris into raptures when she tried its grilled-cheese doughnuts in Richardson last summer, is set to open March 1 in far north Fort Worth, according to the Tom+Chee Alliance Facebook page.
The restaurant is hiring for its location in the rapidly growing Presdio Junction shopping center west of I-35W between North Tarrant Parkway and Heritage Trace Parkway. An Old Chicago Pizza and Taproom is scheduled to open Feb. 16 in the center, and a La Madeleine has tentatively set a March 17 opening date.
The full name of the restaurant is Tom+Chee Grilled Cheese Tomato Soup (tom and chee -- get it?), with the motto “Eat What’s Fun!” So the quixotic menu not only has a build-your-own grilled cheese section, but a “fancy grilled cheese” section with such items as a pepperoni-loaded Hot+Spicy and a vegetarian Hippy+Chee (remember when all grilled-cheese sandwiches were vegetarian?).
There’s also a “Crunchy Grilled Cheese” section with something called an Armagoetta. We’d explain it, but we kind of like the mystery of that name,
There is, of course, also a soup section -- three variations on tomato soup, as well as a soup of the day. Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s talk about the “Grilled Cheese Donuts.”
They have names like Bananarama, Blueberry Blue, the King (yes, an Elvis-style peanut butter-bananarama) and Mint Summer Night. They aren’t as wacky as they sound -- although the Classic features grilled cheddar cheese between doughnuts, most of the doughnuts feature dessert-friendly cheeses such as mascarpone and brie.
According to the “Our Story” section of the Tom+Chee website, the chain has grown from a tiny food tent on a public square in Cincinnati to a rapidly expanding franchise empire after scoring an investment deal on ABC’s Shark Tank. The chain has been featured on ABC’s The Chew, NBC’s Today show and Travel Channel’s Man vs. Food Nation.
The restaurant boasts vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free options. It will be at 8901 Tehama Ridge Parkway in Fort Worth. Interestingly, it’s less than five miles from another grilled-cheese restaurant, Lee’s Grilled Cheese, which grew out of a food truck to have a brick-and-mortar at 5040 North Tarrant Parkway. Is north Tarrant going to become a grilled-cheese haven?
(H/T Dallas Morning News.)
This story was originally published February 12, 2016 at 5:05 PM with the headline "Grilled-cheese restaurant Tom+Chee to open March 1 in Fort Worth."