The Gin serves up homestyle food, music in downtown Prosper

Michael Pettis and his mother, Marcia Pettis, started The Gin in downtown Prosper as “kind of a pet project,” Pettis said.

Pettis, who is a homebuilder in North Texas, bought the building that houses The Gin in 2015 just as the town’s population was starting to take off.

As Prosper has grown, The Gin has grown alongside it, providing food, drinks and a place for the community to come together.

On the menu

When Pettis and his mother took over, the restaurant was operating as the Cotton Gin Cafe, a breakfast and lunch spot with a menu a mile long, he said.

“You’d walk in and it was a big billboard. You could get anything,” he said. “It worked for a while, but as the town grew, we needed to get better at specific things.”

Now, The Gin’s menu focuses on everyday luxury at a reasonable price point, Pettis said.

He added a brick pizza oven in 2017 as a nod to his Italian heritage, and some of The Gin’s most popular items are hamburgers and chicken-fried steak made from Wagyu beef.

At the bar, Pettis said he makes a point to stock high-end bourbon and is expanding The Gin’s wine selection.

Wagyu burgers and brick oven pizza share space on the menu with traditional bar food like nacho and chicken wings, creating a space where there’s something for everyone.

“People know that they can come here and not have to put a sport coat on,” Pettis said. “You just sit back and enjoy your glass of wine.”

The local impact

In addition to food and drink, The Gin also attracts customers with its extensive events calendar.

The Gin regularly hosts live music on its back patio, where the staff swaps the usual furniture for cocktail tables and a dance floor, Pettis said.

This year, The Gin has started hosting larger musicians once a month while weekends are generally reserved for local artists from the Dallas-Fort Worth area “trying to make a name for themselves,” he said.

Groups can also book space at The Gin for parties and events.

Pettis said the Tuman Breast Cancer Foundation hosts an annual charity concert at The Gin, and Grand Love, a charity that supports grandparents raising their grandchildren, hosts their monthly bingo fundraiser at The Gin, according to the charity’s social media.

The history

The Gin is located in a historic building on downtown Prosper’s Broadway Street built in 1902, according to Pettis.

He’s made a series of updates over the last 10 years, including adding dinner service and limiting breakfast to Fridays and Saturdays.

In 2017, he expanded the restaurant to include the unit next door and added a bar, then added a back patio and extra kitchen space in 2020.

Most recently, he covered the back patio space in 2024 and installed heating and cooling so The Gin can host events in the space year-round.

Running a business in a building like The Gin, which was built in 1902, comes with its own set of challenges, Pettis said.

“There’s always something going on,” he said.

As he puts his own spin on the restaurant, Pettis said he’s made a point to preserve the building’s history.

The wooden siding on the walls of the dining room was repurposed from the building’s ceiling, and a sign from the old Cotton Gin Cafe is on display as customers walk in.

“I try to utilize a lot of what we had,” Pettis said. “It’s cool seeing real craftsmanship.”

What’s next

The Gin is already embedded in the Prosper community, and Pettis has plans to expand to a new market as well.

The Gin, Tender Smokehouse and Papa Gallo’s Mexican Grill—two other popular restaurants in the Prosper and Celina area—are partnering with the Anna Economic Development Corporation to build a $10 million restaurant and entertainment development in downtown Anna, according to the EDC’s news release from last July.

In the new development, the three restaurants will share a beer garden, community patio and live entertainment stage, per the release.

Pettis hopes to open the new location in Anna by the end of 2027, or “worst-case scenario, second quarter of 2028,” he said.

As he moves towards opening a second location, Pettis said one of his top priorities is maintaining the quality that visitors at his original location have come to expect.

“My biggest deal is consistency,” he said. “It’s got to be consistent.”