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Did somebody say martinis? A new French cafe is coming to Tanglewood and Fort Worth

The owner of several successful south Fort Worth restaurants will add a new French cafe in a Tanglewood shopping center.

Cafe Margot , a simple French cafe serving salads, entrees, breads and martinis will open by winter in a former chain bakery cafe at 3150 S. Hulen St., restaurateur Felipe Armenta said.

Cafe Margot is Armenta’s fourth restaurant in the neighborhood. He also co-owns The Tavern Bar & Grill , Press Cafe and F1 Smokehouse , along with Pacific Table and Maria’s Mexican Kitchen on South University Drive and Towne Grill in Alliance Town Center. He also has a hand in Cork & Pig Tavern locations across Texas.

Margot will have a “cool French vibe and a really simple menu,” said Armenta, citing New York City inspiration at Balthazar or the reborn Pastis .

The menu will include a traditional frisee salad, a filet au poivre, weekend brunch and house-baked pastries, baguettes and croissants, he said.

“We want it to be someplace fun for the neighborhood,” he said.



The prominent corner location in the Trinity Commons shopping center near TCU was formerly a Corner Bakery Cafe..



That location shut down during the COVID pandemic and had been listed as “temporarily” closed due to short staffing. But Corner Bakery changed hands last year to Philadelphia-based Boston Market , and that company removed the Hulen location from its website this month.



The furnishings and fixtures had been removed before the Trinity Commons landlord posted a lockout notice May 20.

A Corner Bakery Cafe location remains open at 615 Main St.

Armenta grew up in the San Angelo family that founded the city’s Armenta’s Cafe. He went on to culinary school and to open Hillstone/Houston’s chain restaurant locations in Southern California.

He’s kept that tradition of simple menus — a few salads, a few sandwiches, a few entrees — and combined it with his family’s steak and beef background.

Armenta opened the Tavern in 2011 and recently gave that former burger grill a thorough remodeling.

Some of his restaurants’ steaks and brisket now come from his company’s cattle ranch near Walnut Springs, Texas.

Armenta also said he will soon start delivering menu items for all his restaurants from the kitchen at F1 Smokehouse, his barbecue trailer at 4801 Edwards Ranch Road behind Press Cafe.

If you want food delivered from the Tavern, Maria’s or Pacific Table, say, then you’d order from a website menu offering favorites from all the restaurants.

The food will be cooked and delivered from the F1 Smokehouse kitchen, handled by Armenta’s staff instead of by a delivery service.

His company and partners also recently opened a Cork & Pig Tavern in Southlake at 1431 E. Southlake Blvd. It’s the fifth location for what began as a West Texas pizza-and-cocktails chain.