A roadside Marilyn Monroe near Fort Worth has a new owner. Hope she likes brisket
Usually a new Dickey’s Barbecue Pit would not make news.
But none of the more than 500 locations of the worldwide Dallas-based Dickey’s chain will be like the one coming to Haltom City.
A 1950s-style diner that has been a Denton Highway landmark since 1987 is in the process of changing the first Dickey’s to serve morning breakfast daily and homestyle sides along with the franchise chain’s familiar fast-service barbecue.
New owner Felinda Jarmon plans to turn The Café in Haltom City, still open at 3113 Denton Highway, into a future Dickey’s. But she’ll also keep morning breakfasts and add sides such as collard greens or ham hock and black-eyed peas.
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There’s already talk around town.
“There’s been so much confusion about this, it’s just unreal,” Jarmon said.
It will be Dickey’s “but with a twist,” she said.
The location just north of East Belknap Street has a colorful history dating back 64 years, back to when northbound traffic to Denton and Oklahoma traveled Denton Highway before the construction of Interstate 35W.
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A location of Fort Worth’s legendary Griddle Systems diners opened there in 1959. The Haltom Plaza shopping center behind it was built in 1964, and by 1974 the restaurant had changed to a Beefeater plate-lunch cafe, later renamed Beef Chef.
The Café took over the space in 1987, with a pink-flamingo-tropical-blue paint scheme outside in the era of TV’s “Miami Vice” and a chromed 1950s look inside.
It was the second location of a now-gone Café in north Arlington. That location spun off and became Bobby V’s.
The building is remarkable for the 120-pound statues of Marilyn Monroe and a police-officer bodyguard on top, a purchase by former owner Mike Schroder.
“Marilyn and the policeman will stay,” Jarmon said.
The building will be repainted in Dickey’s familiar bright yellow.
“There is no barbecue around here right now,” she said. “You have to go to Fort Worth or somewhere.”
The neighborhood’s craft barbecue devotees go to The Patriotic Pig in North Richland Hills. The traditional favorite remains 77-year-old Sammies Bar-B-Q, just across the Fort Worth city limit at 3801 E. Belknap St.
Dickey’s chain counter-service restaurants aren’t really competition for those restaurants
But Dickey’s offers corporate features such as family packs, online ordering and a rewards program.
Jarmon said she likes Dickey’s smoked Polish sausage or chicken breast, along with the brisket.
She will add local desserts such as sweet potato pie.
“It’ll become more than just a diner,” she said.
For now, The Café remains open for breakfast and lunch daily; 817-838-6709.
This story was originally published June 14, 2023 at 5:30 AM.
