Pizza News
Trailblazing pizza chain Fireside Pies closes location in Grapevine
Fireside Pies
A trailblazing pizzeria has come to its untimely end: Fireside Pies, the pizza chain that changed pizza in Dallas-Fort Worth as we know it, is shuttering its last location. The restaurant is located in Grapevine, at 1285 S Main St. and will close on August 31.
A spokesperson for the restaurant said that the location wasn't doing enough business to warrant staying open. It had been there for nearly 17 years.
"On Saturday, August 31st, Fireside Pies will be closing its store for good," the chain said. "We wanted to thank you for all the support over the past 20 years. Come say goodbye to us and our delicious food in Grapevine. We will miss you."
A statement from Golden Tree Restaurants, who owned Fireside Pies, confirmed they were closing and thanked the community for their support."It is with great sadness that we have decided to close our Grapevine Fireside Pies restaurant to the public, one of the brand’s original locations when Golden Tree Restaurants acquired Fireside Pies in 2018," their statement said. "Since then, we have loved serving the Grapevine community. While we worked tirelessly to maintain our standard of excellence and serve high-quality fare, foot traffic never rebounded to pre-pandemic levels. We want to thank the community for their support and loyalty over the past 6 years. The decision was made with a heavy heart and was based upon business needs and the state of our brand."
Grapevine, which opened in December 2007, was the sole survivor of a chain that at one point had six locations across Dallas-Fort Worth.
Fireside was founded by restaurateur team Tristan Simon and chef Nick Badovinus, who opened the first location on Henderson Avenue in 2004. Its amazing wood-fired pies, with billowy crusts and rustic high-end toppings, profoundly changed the face of pizza in Dallas.
But in recent years, the concept got bumped around by owners: first acquired by Dallas-based Chalak Mitra Group in 2014, then Golden Tree, owner of the Golden Chick chain, in 2018 — neither of which seemed up to the task of caretaking the concept.
One damning blow came in December 2023 with the closure of the original flagship location on Henderson Avenue — a closure that was symbolic, as it had been there for 20 years.
At the time, a company spokesperson blamed the pandemic, stating that they were "never able to recuperate lost sales or rebound back to pre-pandemic foot traffic levels."
The closure left the chain with two locations, neither, shockingly, in Dallas: Grapevine and Fort Worth, which closed quietly in February 2024.
Fireside Pies also faced an increasing degree of competition from local concepts like Cane Rosso and PieTap, as well as national brands like Modern Market. Pizza became a big trend and many new concepts opened, taking business away from established places like Fireside, whose pizzas in recent years did not match the epic pies of its early days.
H-E-B opened its first Fort Worth store in 2024.
Photo courtesy of H-E-B
Meet the 2024 Miss Hooters International winner Cassidy Welch.
Hooters
