Main Street Bakery, Grapevine.

I generally limit my comments to Fort Worth food establishments because that is ninety percent of my dining out, but I had breakfast last week at the Main Street Bakery and Bistro, in Grapevine, and what struck me, besides the fact that the breakfast was good, was the fact that it had a visible on-site owner.

Restaurants require more oversight than your average retail business because the parts that make up the business are so variable. Food is a living thing and is delivered in all kinds of conditions. Add the variables of extreme weather, employees not showing up, customer's varying tastes, continual kitchen cleaning, an unexpected rush of diners, and it is easy to see why restaurants need management. Franchise restaurants attempt to make everything as easy as possible by eliminating variables, or reducing the risk of the variables by keeping to strict recipes, having less perishable food, and the like. It can work, but the food and service suffer most of the time. Smaller, but company owned, restaurant chains, like Pappas and Charleston's, use this formulaic method well, but they also hire and train managers to oversee all elements of the restaurant.

All of this to say a locally owned, profitable restaurant, will usually give you the best combination of food, service, and a reasonable price. Fort Worth has dozens of examples of this for which we are all grateful. I know Grapevine has at least one: the Main Street Bakery and Bistro. The food is good, the service is friendly and timely, and the price is fair. And that is all most of us ask for.


http://www.themainbakery.com/index.html