A popular east Fort Worth barbecue restaurant is making its comeback
A woman-owned barbecue restaurant that gained statewide fame will reopen this month in a new east Fort Worth location.
Lady & the Pit, popular more for chef Natasha Smith’s chicken-fried steak and pork chops, will open at 5301 E. Lancaster Ave.
The location is a 50-year-old early Taco Bell location that was recently a Chinese restaurant.
The tiny restaurant will serve the same full cafeteria-style menu of home cooking, fried foods made to order and barbecue.
There’s not much of a dining room. Lady & the Pit will pack everything as take-out for now, then expand the patio to provide more seating.
The move from the Handley neighborhood positions Lady & the Pit head-to-head against Smokey’s BBQ across the street.
Lady & the Pit is one of Texas’ few woman-owned barbecue restaurants and has been celebrated in Texas Monthly for Smith’s home-cooking menu of fried pork chops, chicken-fried steak and fried catfish.
Lady & the Pit moved from the South Padre Island beach area. Smith’s restaurant had four-star ratings on social media in Port Isabel and Brownsville.
The new address has a long history as a roadside restaurant on what used to be the eastern edge of Fort Worth. Before Taco Bell came to Fort Worth in 1971, the location was the home to the Char Bar, Calvin’s Drive-In and Rite-Way Cafe.
This story was originally published June 15, 2021 at 10:18 AM.
