Popular southside Fort Worth spot for breakfast, chicken-fried steak to reopen
The Old Neighborhood Grill, a landmark south Fort Worth cafe for nearly 30 years, will reopen in mid-July under a new owner who operates several successful breakfast-lunch cafes.
Mazen Haddad, the owner of several Moe’s Cafes, Benbrook Diner, Ginger Brown’s Old Tyme Restaurant & Bakery in Lake Worth and JR’s Cafe in Saginaw, reached an agreement with cafe founder Peter Schroder, Haddad said.
The Old Neighborhood Grill, 1633 Park Place, will keep many of the same staffers and the same basic menu of breakfasts and platters, Haddad said.
He will bring his other restaurants’ homemade pies.
Haddad said he had always heard about the Neighborhood Grill through employees or references.
When he saw it was closing, he went for lunch.
“I tried the Santa Fe grilled chicken sandwich and it was great,” he wrote in a message. “I loved the old atmosphere and the decor.”
The restaurant, open since 1996 and once recognized on a Texas Monthly list of the state’s best breakfasts, closed June 14 with the departure of operator Brenda Lester.
It served home-cooking meals, chicken-fried steaks and breakfasts in a familiar Park Place Village location that was formerly a bar and burger grill named Rick’s Lockerroom.
The location had been a restaurant since 1959, when it opened as Park Place Cake Shop.
n a 2006 review, the Star-Telegram wrote that like the older Paris Coffee Shop on the south side, Old Neighborhood Grill is a “simple but beloved establishment, distinguished by its faithful clientele.”
The Haddad family bought Ginger Brown’s in 2023 and has kept basically the same menu and baked goods it served since 1986 under Brown.
Haddad opened the first Moe’s in 2004 and has expanded it to three locations in far north Fort Worth, Azle and River Oaks.
This story was originally published June 26, 2025 at 4:06 PM.
