Chef Point Cafe in Watauga basks in sweet aftermath of Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives appearance

by Teresa Gubbins

The number of customers has doubled, and there are 30-minute waits on weekend nights.

Marc Lee

Exterior of Chef Point Cafe in Watauga. Note gas pump in foreground. If there was any question that this place was at a gas station, it's been put to rest now.

WATAUGA — On April 6, Chef Point Cafe in Watauga appeared on Food Network's Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives, and life began to get a little more exciting.

Thanks to its unusual location inside the former convenience store attached to a Conoco gas station, the cafe had always gotten its share of press since it opened in 2003. There's a wall covered with clips from local pubs such as the Fort Worth Star-Telegram (though curiously, there's not a single clip from the Dallas Morning News).

But the Guy Fieri stamp of approval has doubled the number of customers, says assistant manager Nancy Sell.

"We've had to hire more people," she says. "These days, we have a 30-minute wait on weekend nights, and we're full on week-nights. On Mother's Day, when we opened at 10 a.m., we had a line of 120 people waiting."

Paula and Franson Nwaeze, owners of Chef Point Cafe in Watauga. She had on pale blue shoes that matched her sleeveless blouse perfectly.

Chef Point Café's story is a good one: Owners Paula and Franson Nwaeze couldn't get a loan for a restaurant but could for a gas station, which they opened in 2001. They eventually installed a kitchen and opened the dining room in what used to be the gas station's convenience store in 2003. There's still a small area with sodas and other convenience items, and occasionally people still buy gas. But on a recent lunch visit, most of the gas-pump bays were occupied by parked cars whose occupants were inside eating.

The menu is large with an Italian-American theme, including pastas and pizzas, plus burgers, for which Chef Point is known. But there are also fancy items such as escargots and French-cut pork chops.

Marc Lee

Interior of Chef Point Cafe in Watauga.

If the menu exhibits fine-dining tendencies, the dining room does not. They don't have a liquor license and the chairs and tables are pretty basic. There's a strong smell of the fry-o-lator when you first walk in, a condition that usually indicates that they're not washing down the kitchen every day, and you can see that in the back of the grill where a layer of dark grease has built up on the stainless steel back-splash. You'll wear that smell in your hair and clothes for the rest of the day.

But the food was good, with a wise dose of seasoning in telltale items such as the fisherman's stew, a tomato-y broth that held a medley of seafood items.

Some photos:

Marc Lee

Caesar salad. This was a side salad that came with entrees, and it had large thick shavings of Parmesan cheese spread on top of the Romaine lettuce leaves.

Marc Lee

Stuffed artichoke bottoms. There were three to an order, and they were stuffed with crabmeat, then topped with this overwhelming blanket of asiago sauce. It was sloppy and fun to eat, though the buttered toast it was served with was hard and not warm.

Marc Lee

Fisherman's stew at Chef Point Cafe in Watauga had tender rings of calamari and chunks of salmon, snapper, maybe a clam or two, in an excellently seasoned broth with a tomato undertone that included shreds of tomato floating throughout.

"Better than sex" fried chicken served at Chef Point Cafe in Watauga. It was pretty darn good. The crust had large flakes that crackled, and a spicy, peppery flavor. Both chicken pieces were breast with wing attached. Mashed potatoes were real, not flakes; their texture was thin and a little bumpy. The cream gravy bound things together but with almost no flavor at all.

Marc Lee

Hamburger and sliders at Chef Point Cafe in Watauga. Sliders are a new-ish dish and were a popular order at lunch. The waitress forgot to bring us a to-go menu, and they don't have them listed on the Web site but I believe it said they were made with "Nolan Ryan" burgers.

Bread pudding with cognac sauce. The pudding was an interesting version, very DENSE. Those swirls you see are the edges of actual slices of bread. It was very cakey -- it almost came across as a moist pound cake. The sauce gave it moisture but probably would have benefited from a little more cognac.

Marc Lee

Waitresses confer with cooks at Chef Point Cafe in Watauga. Note on the upper left corner the little cartoon of Guy Fieri that says "Guy was here." There was also a huge poster of him on the wall, signed. Last year, the restaurant was featured in the March/April issue of Paula Deen magazine, so clearly Chef Point is a Food Network fave.

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