What’s ‘Texas-style’ pizza? It’s coming to Fort Worth in an old house off South Main

A Grapevine restaurant known for “Texas-style pizza” will open a bar and pizzeria in a 90-year-old historic home in South Main Village.

The Sauce’d House, 304 W. Cannon St., will be an expanded version of Sauce’d, a downtown Grapevine pizza takeout shop, owner Conner Gildenblatt said.

The Sauce’d House replaces Cannon Chinese Kitchen in a 1936-vintage home and patio. The location is 1 mile south of downtown, in the southside two blocks west of South Main Street near Rahr & Sons Brewing.

Gildenblatt, a marketing pro and former high school hockey star, said the new location will serve burgers, beer and wine along with Sauce’d’s Grapevine menu of New York-style thin crust or “Texas-style” pizza.

Family members experimented with a “Texas-style” pizza with a stretched, rolled garlic-butter crust, Gildenblatt said.

They added it to the menu the week they took over a New York-style pizza-and-pasta shop and opened the Grapevine Sauc’d at 110 N. Main St. at Northwest Highway.

Sauce’d’s menu features contemporary toppings and clever $18-$24 combinations such as the “Bee Sting,” with soppressata, jalapenos and hot honey, or the “Texican,” with seasoned beef, mozzarella, lettuce, tomato and Doritos.

A “Smokey the Pie” has Italian sausage and roasted red pepper with barbecue sauce. The “Backyard Luau” has grilled chicken with barbecue sauce and pineapple.

All the pizzas come in either “Texas-style” or the familiar 12-inch “New York-style” crust. The New York pizzas are also sold by the slice.

Side items in Grapevine include salads and fries, a keeper for The Sauce’d House.

The Fort Worth location has a large patio facing Rahr, perfect for pizza, wings and beer.

Gildenblatt closed a Sauce’d location on Midway Road in north Dallas in favor of focusing on the new South Main Village location, he said.

“We came down here a few times and realized this is where we need to be,” he said.

The neighborhood is currently served by the stone-oven pizzas from the Back Room bar at Funky Picnic, 401 Bryan Ave. A Cane Rosso location is not far away on West Magnolia Avenue, and a location of Dallas-based Pie Tap is coming soon.

“We’ve met a lot of good people here, and it’s exciting to be close to Rahr,” he said.

If you’re wondering what “Texas-style” means, Gildenblatt described it as a stretched and folded crust similar to what’s served at the 10 area Mama’s Pizza locations or the long-ago Gepetto’s in Arlington..

Mama’s double-mozzarella version has been voted Fort Worth’s best for most of its 54-year history. (So I guess we can say the late Catherine “Mama” Biggs’ Connecticut pizza, always described by Mama’s as “East Coast style,” is now officially “Texas-style.”)

“Texas has always has restaurants with folded crust,” he said.

On a recent trip to Sauce’d in Grapevine, the pizza didn’t resemble Mama’s. But it’s a good pizza on its own with clever options, like if you could get premium toppings on a New York-style crust.

The Grapevine location is open for lunch and dinner daily; 817-527-6009, sauced.pizza.