J. Rae’s is coming home. The bakery, known across North Texas for its hand-decorated sugar cookies, opens its new Fort Worth location on Thursday, July 16 at 3330 West 7th Street, and the address is no accident. The original J. Rae’s opened on West 7th in 2008, which makes this less an expansion than a homecoming, right down to the street.
Jana Howell founded the bakery in Fort Worth and built a following on beautifully decorated cookies and homemade desserts before the original location eventually closed. Her niece, Audrey Dixon, grew up spending summers helping at that first shop, and she carried the family recipes forward when she opened J. Rae’s Dallas on Lovers Lane in 2021. Now Dixon is leading the brand’s return to the city where it started, the first J. Rae’s in Fort Worth in more than a decade.
“My aunt Jana started J. Rae’s in Fort Worth, and to now be at a place where we are able to open a second location back where it all started is so special,” Dixon said. “We’ve had customers drive all the way to Dallas just to support us, so being able to serve this community again means everything.”
The new 1,700-square-foot shop carries the bakery’s signature black-and-white stripes and hot pink branding into a bright, modern space. The cases will hold the hand-decorated sugar cookies that made the name, alongside classic cookies, cupcakes, cheesecakes, cake balls, and cookie cakes. Favorites run from chocolate chip, oatmeal chocolate chip, and peanut butter cookies to red velvet, funfetti, and lemon cake balls, with seasonal offerings rotating through the year.
Dixon is quick to point out that the decorating, as elaborate as it gets, is only half the job. “We care just as much about how our cookies taste as we do how they look,” she said. “Decorating is important, but flavor always comes first.”…