Roy Pope Grocery in Fort Worth was a finalist of this year’s Star-Telegram Readers Choice poll for best places to shop local for Christmas gifts.
Amanda McCoy
amccoy@star-telegram.com
Fort Worth has approved plans to turn an 83-year-old neighborhood grocery store and deli into a restaurant and bar, despite concerns from residents about parking.
Roy Pope Grocery, at 2300 Merrick St., closed in May to be remodeled into a restaurant and bar with the same name.
The grocery store, which opened in 1943, closed in 2020 and reopened a year later as a gourmet market, deli, and coffee and wine bar.
New owner Westland Hospitality Group, known for JD’s Hamburgers and the revitalization of multiple Fort Worth restaurants, also owns several other establishments in town including Curly’s Frozen Custard and West Side Cafe.
On Sept. 9, the Fort Worth Zoning Commission recommended the denial of a request from owner RPFW Properties LLC for a zoning change to open a restaurant inside the historic building.
The request was denied because the site did not have enough parking spaces — 72 were required by the new zoning, and 34 were proposed.
Since the commission meeting, the owner has added 50 parking spots, about a block south of the grocery store building, according to a presentation given during the Fort Worth City Council meeting on Sept. 29.
The additional parking spots — which would be shared — would include valet, employee, and customer parking between 6 p.m. and 11 p.m.
Managing partner Bourke Harvey said at Tuesday’s City Council meeting that claims made by residents that the restaurant and bar would be a boisterous neighbor were untrue.
“We wanted to have a neighborhood feel, not a crazy loud bar with ruckus,” Harvey told council members.
The additional parking spaces, residents who spoke at the meeting said, were not enough to squash concerns that cars would overflow into nearby neighborhoods.
“I am all for new restaurants, helping out the community, having Roy Pope develop into something great, but not at the expense of the West Byers Neighborhood Association,” said resident Candace Fyfe. “Having our neighborhood littered with cars because there’s not sufficient parking is unacceptable.”
City Council member Macy Hill, who represents District 7 — which includes the site of the grocery store — spoke before the request was approved unanimously except for District 11 council member Jeanette Martinez, who was absent.
“I can’t find anything egregious about what the owner operator wants to do, and there’s a lot of personal animosity and misinformation that’s been passed around the neighborhoods,” Hill said. “This is not a mixed-use or a high-density request.”
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Emily Holshouser is a local news reporter at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.