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

by Teresa Gubbins

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."

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.

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.

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