“My parents couldn’t get a loan for a restaurant, but they could get one for a gas station,” manager Nate Nwaeze said about Chef Franson Nwaeze and Paula Merrell Nwaeze. “So they found a gas station with a half finished-out building and redid the specs to have a kitchen inside.”
Originally, the kitchen was going to be for catering only. But then when people came inside to pay for gas and get items from the convenience store, they smelled the food.
“They asked if we had a menu,” Nate said. “My mom said, ‘Come back tomorrow. We’ll have a menu for you; they’re just at the printer.’”
Over the course of two days, they came up with a menu of Italian-American dishes based on Franson’s experience in the kitchen at Macaroni Grill. They started out as a small cafe with plastic tables and chairs, and a small bar area painted red.
“My mom said it was white-tablecloth dining without the white tables,” Nate said.
From the time they started the restaurant in April 2003, there was a buzz about the kind of food being created in a gas station.
The couple opened their Colleyville location in September 2019. For them and the entire family it is a culmination of what they have worked so hard for since trying their luck with opening a fine-dining restaurant in a gas station all those years ago.
“My dad was doing things that people had never experienced in this area before. He was serving oxtail, making homemade asiago cream sauce and homemade bread pudding. And he was always putting his unique spin on his dishes,” Nate said.
“That’s the difference between a cook and a chef. A chef creates items. A cook makes items that a chef tells him to cook.”
Chef Point Bar & Restaurant
5220 SH 121, Colleyville
817-482-5030
www.chefpointcafe.org
Hours:
Sun. 10 a.m.-9 p.m.
Mon.-Thu., 11 a.m.-9 p.m.
Fri. 11 a.m.-10 p.m., Sat. 10 a.m.-10 p.m.
