In a city where the smoke from backyard pits and the sizzle of brisket on the grill have long marked Fort Worth’s culinary heartbeat, few restaurants have captured the city’s soul like Drew’s Place.
Since 1987, Drew and Stephanie Thomas have been serving up southern-fried staples in a bustling corner of Fort Worth’s Como neighborhood, turning a former dentist’s office into a gathering place where generations of local families have celebrated milestones, shared stories, and savored the flavors of home. This week, Drew’s Place cemented its spot in American food history: it’s one of 50 small restaurants nationwide to receive a $50,000 grant from American Express and the National Trust for Historic Preservation, honoring it as a true culinary and cultural landmark.
For locals, Drew’s Place sits alongside Fort Worth icons like Carshon’s Deli, Joe T. Garcia’s, and the Paris Coffee Shop — a testament to its status as a city staple. The restaurant’s story begins in Forest Hill, where the first iteration of Drew’s Soul Food opened its doors. The move to Como brought the restaurant into a 1960s dentist’s office, “complete with a lattice roof, rock wall, and other elements of midcentury modern decor, most of which the couple has kept intact,” our food writer Malcolm Mayhew pointed out in Feb…