A landmark Fort Worth restaurant may get new life as a piece of Near Southside art
A Near Southside art initiative and the developers of an affordable housing complex are looking for artists to re-imagine the Massey’s Restaurant sign that once hung by one of Fort Worth’s most famous chicken fried steak joints.
For decades Massey’s was a landmark in the Near Southside, serving a reported 6,000 chicken fried steaks a week in the 1980s. The restaurant served its last steak in 2011. The building’s demolition in 2014 drew a crowd that included former owner Diane Massey.
Located on the edge of the Fairmount National Historic District at the corner of Eighth and Park Place avenues, the property is being redeveloped as Everly Plaza, an affordable housing option for seniors in the popular neighborhood. The 88-unit mixed income building is for those 62 and older.
Saigebrook Development and O-SDA Industries, the same group behind the nearby Mistletoe Station, are the developers.
Art South, the Near Southside art program, and the developers want an artist to repurpose the iconic sign as the signature art piece for a community gallery at Everly Plaza, said Megan Henderson, events director for the Near Southside. The piece will anchor the 2,400-square-foot gallery planned for the first floor facing Eighth Avenue.
“We think it’s a wonderful piece of the history of the site,” Henderson said of the sign, a corrugated plastic panel with raised lettering. reading “Massey’s Restaurant” and “Chicken Fried Steaks.”
“We want to take something from the past and bring it into modern times,” she said.
Artists can modify the sign as much or as little as they wish, based on their ideas and the project budget of $2,500. Art South is open to any concept and any medium, Henderson said, including submissions from writers.
Unlike some art requests that ask for completed work as part of the submission, Henderson said the selection committee will review an artist’s qualifications and previous work. Artists who are selected as finalists will be offered a stipend to create a concept and rendering.
Submissions are due Jan. 6 and can be submitted online through the Near Southside’s portal.
“We’re saying to an artist, ‘Do whatever weird and wonderful thing you think will make this sign a piece of art,’” Henderson said.
Generations of Fort Worthians flocked to Massey’s for classic comfort food.
Diane Massey and her husband, Charles Massey, ran the restaurant for 25 years, but it dated back to 1947 when Charles’ father, Herbert Massey, opened it.
Novelist Dan Jenkins immortalized the restaurant as “Herb’s,” which many locals then called it, in his 1981 novel “Baja Oklahoma,” set in Fort Worth, according to Star-Telegram archives.
The novel was made into an HBO original film starring Lesley Ann Warren as Juanita Hutchins, a feisty 40-something barmaid who couldn’t be out-sworn by male customers. Though it was very popular during the 1970s and ’80s, Jenkins told the Star-Telegram Massey’s meant more to him in the ’40s and ’50s when he and fellow writers like Bud Shrake would hang out there.
