It’s one of the best takeout dinner deals in Fort Worth. And with cookies, too
Two Fort Worth restaurants have stood out for feeding families during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
One is obvious. Chef Jon Bonnell’s $40 takeout family dinners still draw long lines five nights a week on Southwest Loop 820.
But when Bonnell is resting on Mondays and then throughout the weekdays, Local Foods Kitchen has takeout dinner packages for two for $30, and they’re often big enough to serve three or four.
“We’re just trying to get by while everything is on hold,” said chef Katie Schma of Local Foods, 4548 Hartwood Drive in the Tanglewood Village shopping center.
Five years ago, she brought her cooking to Fort Worth from successful restaurants in Dallas (City Cafe) and Napa Valley, California.
Local Foods Kitchen has the same basics: a lunch cafe, takeout shop and bakery, with 10 sandwiches, a knockout choice of more than 15 salads, and fresh cookies and cakes.
Before the pandemic, it was a place to grab a chicken salad or tuna salad sandwich and a chocolate chip cookie, or a Saturday patio breakfast of brisket hash or avocado toast with the family.
Now, it’s also the place for nightly takeout dinner specials such as steaks, shrimp or paella with a soup, salad and dessert.
On Wednesdays though Fridays, more than 100 family dinners each night are delivered from a drive-up stand beginning at 4 p.m. If any are left by 5 p.m., they’re sold inside or at curbside.
On Mondays and Tuesdays, the meals are packed for one person and sold inside from 3-5 p.m.
They only cost $15, and there’s a choice of an entree, side, salad and cookie from the display case.
The last few weeks, that’s meant $15 dinners featuring grilled salmon, chicken enchiladas, chicken pot pie or a chopped turkey patty with basil pesto and goat cheese.
The sides include choices such as caramelized Brussels sprouts or gourmet mac-and-cheese, plus a variety of green salads and your pick of four or five cookies.
On Monday and Tuesday, if you pick two dinners, sides, salads and cookies, that’s enough to split across two nights or share among three or four people for $30.
At a time when so many Texans and Americans are watching dollars, the takeout dinners are a way to save.
“Every business is in this together — we’re all kind of holding hands in unity,” she said.
Her dining room has s few seats. (The patio is larger.)
But 70 percent of the business is takeout, in a neighborhood with the county’s highest coronavirus rate since school started again at TCU.
“We’re just hanging in there,” she said.
As for the future, she said: “Let’s see how long this goes. I’m OK with it for a while.”
September is a big month for Local Foods.
Besides the return of Saturday breakfast, it’s starting to cool down enough to dine outdoors on the screened west patio.
Schma plans to add dishes for cooler weather such as beef bourgignon, a chicken or lamb curry or osso bucco.
And Local Foods is finally getting a promotion.
“I get my name on the big marquee!” she said.
Another tenant in Tanglewood Village moved. So Local Foods will get a larger sign on South Hulen Street.
It’s open weekdays for lunch and early dinner, Saturdays for breakfast and lunch; 817-238-3464, localfoodskitchen.com.
This story was originally published September 7, 2020 at 5:45 AM.
