From downtown grocery to dinner restaurant: a new nighttime option in Fort Worth

From the beginning, everybody liked Neighbor’s House Grocery more as a restaurant than as a food market.

So the downtown neighborhood market near Burnett Park has become a weekday lunch-and-dinner hangout.

Downtown needed more restaurants, said Kyle Cowan, owner of what is now a grocery-restaurant with adjacent free parking in the First on 7th tower, 500 W. Seventh St.

The proliferation of supermarkets and Amazon Fresh delivery services meant downtown no longer needs a market and deli. That was what Cowan opened in 2019.

But Neighbor’s House was already popular for breakfast tacos and lunch, so Cowan kept the market decor, expanded the menus and added table service.

As downtown workers come back, “the kitchens have become busier and the groceries slower,” he wrote by email.

“We began talking of changing with the landscape of downtown.”

Neighbor’s House now picks up the slack in a Burnett Park neighborhood where the only other restaurants near office towers and federal buildings are Picchi Pacchi Italian and Bailey’s Bar-B-Q.

A new Italian restaurant, 61 Osteria, will open next year facing Burnett Park. Neighbor’s House actually faces its parking garage, 500 W. Sixth St.

“We offer an affordable, family-friendly option to dine downtown with free parking,” Cowan wrote. The dinner menu has sandwiches for $15-$20 and dinners for $20-$30, but the wines and beers sell for retail prices instead of a markup.

A wide-ranging dinner menu offers platters such as elk meatballs, bison meatloaf, fried catfish and pan-fried country-style round steak with jalapeno cream gravy.

The menu also offers an elk burger, seven sandwiches or po’boys, salads and sides such as smoked-cheddar grits, bourbon-creamed corn and gouda mac-and-cheese with bacon.

Lunch platters sell for $16.50.

Neighbor’s House is also hosting a farmer’s market in early evening Tuesdays.

Burnett Park is offering more programming and events similar to Sundance Square, including lunch concerts Wednesdays, salsa dance lessons Thursdays and an open-air showing of “Grease” Sept. 16.

Neighbor’s House is open until 2 p..m. weekdays for lunch, closes in midafternoon and reopens at 4:30 p.m. weeknights for dinner. It’s closed weekends; 817-334-0526, neighborshousegrocery.com.