Fort Worth restaurant Reata to close in Sundance Square in a few days
June 27,2024
See full Dallas Morning News article by Sarah Blaskovish here.
Reata, the nearly 30-year-old Fort Worth restaurant known for its country decor and Texas food, will close in Sundance Square after dinner on June 30, 2024.
The restaurant will reopen in July 2024 — the date is not yet set — at 530 Throckmorton St. in downtown Fort Worth. Reata will return to the same building where it served dishes like pepper-crusted tenderloin from 1996 until 2001. Reata left the tower in early 2001 after it was “blown out of the sky by a Texas tornado” in March 2000, The Dallas Morning News reported.
It moved to Sundance Square for the next 22 years.
The Bass family, which owns the Sundance Square property, did not renew Reata’s restaurant lease, and a spokesperson didn’t return a request for comment. Reata president Mike Micallef has said since 2022 that the restaurant would need to relocate.
Micallef recommends making a reservation for those who want to visit Reata during its last few days in its longtime home.
“We’ve had a lot of guests who, over the years, have had something special here,” he said. “They were married here, they had a rehearsal dinner here. A lot of people are trying to get back one last time.”
The cowboy-cooking restaurant has always looked the part, with cowhide couches and saddles on display. It’s part Western chic, part rancho grandioso, our critic said when it moved to Sundance Square.
For just a few more days, Reata’s iconic dome in the dining room will offer views of the North Texas sky. (Come to think of it: A Dallas Cowboys fan might say that God could look down on dinner at Reata through that dome.)
Some popular dishes at Reata are blackened buffalo rib-eye, jalapeño-cilantro crusted Texas red fish and that timeless pepper-crusted tenderloin. Many order them with bacon-wrapped asparagus or spicy cheese grits as sides.
When Micallef and his team learned they’d need to move Reata, they didn’t consider selling it or closing it. The plan was always to find it a home, preferably one in downtown Fort Worth, which they found, Micallef said.
“We’ve seen a big evolution in downtown,” he said. “If you go back into the 1980s, downtown wasn’t a place for people to come and eat dinner and go to a show, etc. That really changed there in the 1990s.”
Reata was part of that change when it took over the top floor of the Bank One Tower in the late 1990s. The “momentum,” as he called it, continued when they moved to Sundance Square.
Parking has since become a topic of concern in Sundance Square. In the latest news, no more free nighttime parking is available in Garage 3 as of June 22, 2024, fortworthreport.org reported.
Businessowners have expressed their discontent about parking, as did Micallef in 2022. He chose not to comment on Sundance as his restaurant leaves the area.
Reata is at 310 Houston St., Fort Worth. Reservations are recommended until it closes at the end of service on June 30, 2024. Reata is expected to move to 530 Throckmorton St., Fort Worth, and reopen in July 2024.
Locations Mentioned: Reata Restaurant, Sundance Square Plaza