Family-style dinner, BYOB wine new for Tanglewood-area gourmet cafe

Surrounded by new restaurants in Clearfork, Waterside and Westbend, Local Foods Kitchen is striking back.

The fresh-healthy-happy lunch/take-out shop and bakery in Tanglewood will add sit-down, family-style weekend dinner service beginning next week.

For the launch July 12, chef Katie Schma will serve a family-style fried chicken dinner with corn, potatoes, a watermelon-cucumber salad and an optional blueberry buckle dessert.

The price isn't cheap — $27 for entree and salad, or $34 with dessert — but it's BYOB, so that makes the total price better than elsewhere in nearby Trinity Commons or other shopping centers.

The other menus that weekend will feature flatiron steak July 13, beef short ribs July 14.

Like a pop-up, Local Foods will offer only one menu those nights, and take reservations only online via OpenTable.com. No phone calls.

"We have so many people who come in the day — we want to promote coming back at night," Schma said. July 13 is her take-out cafe's third anniversary.

"I figured, let's cook for real. Let's have fun and do some special dinners."

The restaurant will continue to sell take-out salads and desserts until about 7 those nights, she said.

Local Foods is open until 7:30 nightly. It's everybody's grab-and-go stop on the way home along South Hulen Street.

Lately, Local Foods also has begun gaining a following for its weekday breakfast and weekend brunch menus.

Before she came to Texas, where her family founded City Cafe in Dallas, Schma grew up in Carmel, California, and cooked in her mother Mardi's popular Napa Valley cafe, Nest in Oakville.

So she wasn't surprised to see the rise of avocado toast as a brunch favorite.

"Out there, they had this incredible rustic sourdough bread," she said, referring to the legendary San Francisco artisan bread.

"I decided we need to do that here."

Instead of an avocado smear, Local Foods serves a generous helping of avocado slices across toast. It's $10.99, or add poached eggs and sliced bacon.

The presence of a green fruit should not deter regular breakfast customers from trying Local Foods' breakfast tacos or blueberry pancakes.

Local Foods opens at 7:30 a.m. daily except Sunday; 4548 Hartwood Drive (one block west of South Hulen Street), 817-238-3464, localfoodskitchen.com.

Rivas returns to the north side

When restaurants close, they rarely come back.

Rivas Cafe is a very happy exception.

After two decades in River Oaks, a new generation of the Rivas family has returned to north Fort Worth and reopened their classic Tex-Mex cafe at 2714 Azle Avenue, near West Long Avenue.

The original Rivas opened in 1986 on Northwest 25th Street in the heart of the traditional Fort Worth north side.

If you're one of those folks missing Aguilera's Cafe's enchiladas or Mi Cocinita's simplicity, Rivas is the same kind of simple little cafe.

Breakfasts, including menudo, sell for $5.50-$8, and breakfast burritos start at $1..95. The lunch menu is mostly $6-$7 and tops out at $9.95 for fajitas or $11.95 for a mixed grill with beef, chicken, shrimp and smoked sausage.

Rivas Cafe opens at 7 a.m. Friday through Sunday; 2714 Azle Ave., 817-420-6536, and has a page on facebook.com.

Hot dogs on July 4, or wait for July 5

Few restaurants serve food specials for July 4, although several whip up red-white-and-blue cocktails.

But Mash'D is patriotic. So it's offering $5 all-beef hot dogs with fries.

Mash'D is marketed for its "moonshine" cocktails, but the food is better than your typical bar-and-grlll. The double-Akaushi-beef bacon cheeseburger challenges even the vaunted nearby burgers at Fred's and Rodeo Goat.

Mash'D is open for lunch and dinner daily at 2948 Crockett St. on Crockett Row; 817-882-6723, mashd.com/food.html

It's also the morning for the Nathan's Famous hot-dog-eating contest at Curly's Frozen Custard in west Fort Worth.

Curly's is at 4017 Camp Bowie Blvd., 817-763-8700; curlysfrozencustard.com.

(Best July 4 tip of all: Crash early. Then beat the late sleepers to lunch Thursday at restaurants where there's usually a long line, such as Heim Barbecue, Joe T. Garcia's, Pecan Lodge in Dallas or Magnolia Table in Waco.. Restaurant lines are often shortest early on Jan. 1, March 18, July 5 and Nov. 1, or any morning after a late-night festival or holiday.)

This story was originally published July 1, 2018 at 5:24 PM.