Heim Barbecue will close its West Magnolia Avenue restaurant in Fort Worth, transfer the Dallas location to a longtime employee-turned-franchisee, and focus on two other locations and startup of a prix-fixe concept called Heim Pig Stand, co-owner Will Churchill confirmed Monday.
Churchill cited the high cost of a planned smokehouse teardown and rebuild at the West Magnolia location, as well as “slipping” sales at that restaurant. Churchill, his sister Corrie Fletcher, and minority owners and founders Travis and Emma Heim will instead lean into operating the Heim location in the westside River District, a newly opened restaurant in Weatherford and the Pig Stand.
Heim’s food truck will be rebranded Heim Pig Stand, an incarnation that will be tested at a number of locations beginning March 4, with the ultimate goal of opening a number of small brick-and-mortar restaurants, Churchill said in an interview. The first test spot will be on 3.5 acres that Churchill and his group purchased last year on Camp Bowie West Boulevard in Westland, across from the JD’s Hamburgers and Margie’s Italian Gardens restaurants and west of The Patch Cafe. Churchill now leases the site to the “Landman” television series for shoots.
Heim Barbecue sells its pulled pork sandwich for $13.49. (Scott Nishimura | Fort Worth Report)
Pig Stand will sell a choice of pulled pork or chopped beef sandwiches, one of two sides and banana pudding for $12-$15, Churchill said. By contrast, Heim locations sell just the pulled pork sandwich for $13.49.
The West Magnolia store’s last day of operation will be Feb. 1, Churchill said. After that, the owners will sell the location or lease it to another operator, he said. They have signed broker Sarah LanCarte of LanCarte Commercial to handle the property, he said.
“We were going to have to put a lot of money into Magnolia, and we began to have conversations about whether we wanted to continue” there, Churchill said. “We’re one of the highest-price non-white tablecloth meals you can have. If you play in that space, you usually have one location in Fort Worth, not two.”
He said availability of labor — the popular Terry Black’s Barbecue raided Heim for employees when opening in Fort Worth in 2024, Churchill has said — was no longer an issue.
The River District location also is home to Heim’s catering and food preparation operations, Churchill noted.
“If we can maintain 25% of the people that would come to Magnolia, I think that helps (the River District store) significantly,” he said.
Churchill also cited the recent shutdowns of Brix Barbecue on the Near Southside and a barbecue-selling food truck as evidence that Fort Worth may have too much barbecue.
“It has been a little bit of a struggle,” he said. “Maybe this is a greater good for everybody.”
Churchill said the owners notified the West Magnolia restaurant’s 30 employees on Monday. He said he expects to be able to hire some number of them for Heim’s other operations.
“No idea,” he said, when asked how many Heim expects to be able to take. “We’ll see what the take rate is. Our catering business is growing, Weatherford is growing.”
Churchill and Fletcher opened the West Magnolia restaurant in August 2016, purchasing the real estate and going into partnership with the Heims. They opened the River District restaurant in April 2019, the Dallas location off of Dallas Love Field in October 2020, and the Weatherford store last year. The employee who’s taking over the Dallas restaurant will become a franchisee, Churchill said.
Heim Barbecue will rebrand its food truck as Heim Pig Stand and begin testing locations in March for future small-format, low-priced restaurants. (Courtesy image | Heim Barbecue)
Heim Pig Stand will have a limited daily inventory of sandwiches and sell 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Wednesday-Friday at the test locations, Churchill said.
“You’ll be able to drive up, walk up, order your sandwich and the side you want, and it’ll be one low price,” he said. “We think that addresses the prices associated with barbecue.”
Churchill said his group will test Heim Pig Stand in different locations for three weeks to a month.
The Westland site is near a shopping center where Dayne’s Craft Barbecue operated a well-subscribed food truck before moving to a brick-and-mortar restaurant in Aledo. The road is also close to the cluster of auto dealerships that Churchill and Fletcher, the great-grandchildren of the longtime Cadillac dealer Frank Kent, have divested.
“I really like this strip from Camp Bowie to 820, Spur 580,” Churchill said. “It’s an underserved market out there. There’s not much. There’s plenty of parking. I think there’s plenty of restaurant growth that could happen out there.”
Churchill said his group acquired the land 13 months ago.
“Our long-term goal is to put these Heim Pig Stands in 600- to 900-square-foot (brick-and-mortar) footprints and have three, four, five of these in Tarrant County and see how it goes,” Churchill said. “We want to make sure we can service it from our centralized commissary” at the River District store.
Scott Nishimura is senior editor for local government accountability at the Fort Worth Report. Reach him at scott.nishimura@fortworthreport.org.
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