New city, new restaurant, new dishes and old favorites at TV’s famous Chef Point Cafe
Chef Point Cafe’s new location is not like the first.
Mainly because there aren’t any gas pumps.
Seventeen years after a chef who couldn’t get a restaurant loan opened a gourmet pasta cafe and seafood grill in a Watauga gas station, Chef Point now has a sparkling location on Texas 121 and a new following.
The original location, 5901 Watauga Road, has been featured on TV shows and in national foodie news as the “calamari Conoco.”
“We were the first gas station in the world to sell escargots,” said chef Franson Nwaeze, now accustomed to retelling a story that began when he was an ambitious engineering student fron Nigeria working in the elegant old Fountains restaurant in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
In Fort Worth, he and his wife, Paula Merrell, were turned down by banks. So they bought a convenience store and brought back the gas pumps.
“That’s how we got into the gas business,” Nwaeze said. “It seemed like the best way to go. It was the way God wanted us to go.”
He was using the kitchen for catering, cooking stuffed “whatnot” mushroom caps and pasta and seafood dishes similar to those popular at The Fountains, a long-standing Tulsa favorite.
One day, a customer asked for a sample. The next day, he asked to see the menu.
“It’s at the printer,” Merrell told him.
Then she told Nwaeze to write one.
Soon, diners from across Northeast Tarrant County came to the gas-station grill for Monte Cristo sandwiches, cipollini soup or blackened stuffed chicken with crab and pepper Jack.
The first time I went, I opened the door to find a chest-high display of Quaker State motor oil. Atop it was the chalkboard sign: “Today’s special — roast duck à l’Orange.”
Chef Point eventually expanded with a genuine dining room and bar.
The new Colleyville location opened last fall at 5220 Texas 121 near Glade Road and the west entrance to DFW Airport. Also, the Watauga restaurant finally did away with the gas pumps.
Chef Point is all about dining now, with old favorites and new items to be added in Colleyville.
Colleyville lunch diners like “special salads,” so he’ll expand that menu, Nwaeze said in a recent Eats Beat podcast (listen on iTunes).
The menu features items in Nweaze’s rich sauces, like the blackened stuffed chicken, pork chop or swordfish in an Asiago sauce ($23-$29) or the chicken or pasta in creamy garlic sauce.
Years ago, Chef Point introduced a chicken-fried chicken breast called “Better Than Sex” fried chicken ($18). Not long after came the chicken-and-waffles.
A brunch menu also offers crab or eggs Benedict, huevos rancheros or sausage biscuits and gravy, along with a French toast version of Chef Point’s signature bread pudding with cognac sauce.
A new family takeout menu offers fried chicken, meatloaf, pasta, grilled chicken, chicken Parmesan or other dishes, served as a $34-$53 dinner for four.
Chef Point is open for dinner daily, lunch Friday through Sunday; chefpointcafe.org.
This story was originally published July 14, 2020 at 5:45 AM.
