Westland Hospitality has been busy refreshing some of Fort Worth’s favorite restaurants in recent years. The team that resurrected Pulido’s Kitchen & Cantina, and planted JDs Hamburgers along a lonely stretch of Camp Bowie West, is reintroducing Fort Worth to its beloved Margie’s Italian Gardens. It is set to open this weekend.
Westland partners Bourke Harvey, Gigi Howell, and Mark McBride added chef Juan Rodriguez and his wife Paige to the party last year, bringing Magdalena’s Catering & Events expertise into the mix. All were on hand Tuesday evening at the first VIP soft opening event, where they showcased the completely transformed space of Margie’s Italian Gardens and its new menu to guests.
Margie Lizzo Walters, along with her mother Tina Lozzi, founded the snug eatery at 9805 Camp Bowie West Boulevard in 1953. These Italian immigrants brought with them a slate of truly authentic dishes. It was originally planted along what was then a busier thoroughfare (part of the historic Bankhead Highway) or Highway 80 West, before highway routes shifted, leaving many Westland businesses on a quiet stretch of road, where Camp Bowie just kind of fizzles out. Then, ownership changed, and many of Margie’s dishes changed over the years.
“While it has seen many changes over the years, we are bringing it back to its roots. This is not the Margie’s that closed in 2023. It is the Margie’s that opened in 1953,” Westland promises.
You’ll find the new Margie’s Italian Gardens located across the road from the set of the mythical Patch Café where filming for season two of Taylor Sheridan’s Landman will be resuming soon.
To say it was in “disrepair” when Westland purchased the property next door to its JDs Hamburger is an understatement. The exterior is now painted a crisp white, and its signage is restored with red and green lettering and that famous founding year of 1953. You won’t recognize the interior at all. A fresh tin ceiling adds historic appeal overhead, and the worn linoleum flooring has been scraped to the concrete.
With the entry in the middle section with three high-top tables, the dining is spread between two adjoining rooms to your right and left. The left-hand dining also houses a long bar with stool seating and elegant milk glass lighting. New marble-topped tables and a few red banquettes tie the space together. Café curtains drape the windows throughout.
As luck would have it, I was seated at the table next to Doyle Walters, who is the son of Margie’s founder, Margie Lizzo Walters. He recalls working in the kitchen in his youth, and when I asked if he was still in the restaurant business, he shuddered a bit and answered with an emphatic, “No, I couldn’t take another minute.” After all, it’s a tough business.
Of the completely reimaging space and more historic menu, Walters says, “It’s more like the Margie’s that opened in 1953 (then closed in 1996) than the one that closed in 2023.”
The one that closed in 2023 had no connection or relationship to Margie, except the use of a generic name.
“Margie was my mom,” he says. “I grew up, literally, in that building from the time I was four, in 1953, until I went to college. Then in 1978, my wife and I moved back and went into the business with mom. She retired in the mid-80s and sadly died too young in 1991, and Nancy and I decided to close operations in December of 1996.”
“In August 1997, another person opened a restaurant using my mother’s name and reputation, without the family’s knowledge or consent, and with no culinary connection to my family’s food or recipes.”
That was the disconnect that led to the slow decline of a Fort Worth institution. People would come to dine and leave thinking it wasn’t a good as they remembered. That’s why.
Westland’s Gigi Howell goes way back with Margie’s family. Her ties to the Westland area itself are part of her own family heritage. So, restoring Margie’s Italian Gardens to its former glory was a natural fit for the restaurant group.
“This iteration of Margie’s Italian Gardens has mom’s full heavenly blessing and some input from the earthly family and our full, unequivocal support,” says Doyle Walters. “After all, Gigi was almost 10 before she fully realized that my mother, Margie, was not her grandmother.”
Appetizers include smoked tenderloin carpaccio, a brie board with charcuterie, and tender calamari strips with a sweet orange chili sauce. Soups include a classic minestrone and tomato basil. The salads range from Italian chop to tomato and mozzarella caprese, and a Caesar.
Some of the main dishes include a light shrimp scampi, a hearty slice of lasagna, and spaghetti topped with homestyle (large) meatballs. There is a range of pastas and sauces to craft your dish, topped with your choice of Florentine, marinara, Bolognese, tomato cream, alfredo, or marsala sauce. Or choose a parmesan-crusted chicken, eggplant, or veal, as well as piccata presentations of chicken, veal, or trout.
For dessert, a tiramisu, a cappuccino pie, and a shareable slice of New York cheesecake, among others.
A trip to Margie’s Italian Gardens is like slipping back in time. As the historic Westland neighborhood continues its rebirth, thanks to Westland Hospitality for reintroducing Margie’s Italian Gardens, and making sure it will remain a part of this historic highway.
