Olaf Growald
Kenneth Barton and Natasha Smith have moved their popular soul food and barbecue restaurant The Lady and the Pit to East Lancaster.
It’s a few days before the reopening of The Lady and the Pit, and co-owner Kenneth Barton is busy testing out “the pit.” A nearby stack of mesquite wood will soon be diminished as Barton, log by log, feeds his custom-made smoker, a beauty he built himself years ago. Soon, plumes of smoke begin to spread the unmistakable fragrance of barbecue, causing the hungry and the curious to stop in their tracks. “Next week,” he tells an inquiring passerby. “Next week and we’ll finally be open again.”
Talk about a long time coming: For the past two years, Kenneth Barton and co-owner Natasha Smith, the “Lady” in the restaurant’s name, have been trying to find a new home for their acclaimed barbecue and soul food restaurant. Named by Fort Worth Magazine as one of the best new restaurants in 2017 — sentiments echoed by Texas Monthly and the Star-Telegram — The Lady and the Pit thrived for three years in the Handley area of the city’s east side before it was beset by maintenance issues; it closed in 2019.
Second chances in the restaurant industry are tough to come by. Throw in a pandemic, and no one would blame you if you just moved on. But business partners Barton and Smith were determined to find a new home for their beloved restaurant, and in January, they did just that, landing at 5301 E. Lancaster Ave., in a building that still sports the signature architecture of a certain Mexican fast-food chain.
Since January, they’ve been making it their own, adding a nice dining room area, a bigger kitchen, and, of course, a pit room for Barton’s smoker.
“Different building but the same feel,” Smith says. “It’s a home-cooking restaurant, so it’ll have a home-type feel, like you’re eating with your family.”
The Fort Worth natives opened their first restaurant in 2012 in the Port Isabel area of South Padre Island. But after Smith’s father grew ill in 2015, they moved back home, relocating the restaurant to an old Pizza Inn in the Handley area of the east side.
There, the two made names for themselves for excellent barbecue and Southern and soul food classics, such as fried pork chops, catfish, and chicken-fried steak. Housemade desserts included pineapple cream pie and strawberry lemonade cake.
Most of menu from the Handley location will make the jump, either as daily specials or permanent menu items. A handful of healthier dishes will be added, such as smoked salmon and smoked mahi mahi.
Smoked chicken salad, a popular item only available on certain days at the Handley location, will be a permanent fixture on the new menu. Smith says she’s also toying with the idea of adding stuffed turkey legs, which are becoming increasingly more popular in Fort Worth. The barbecue menu will include chopped and sliced brisket, pulled pork, hot links, smoked chicken, bologna, and pork ribs, with sides such as collard greens and candied yams.
Smith and Barton have their own distinct roles at the restaurant: She focuses on the home-cooking dishes, while he zeroes in on the barbecue. Both learned their tools of the trade by watching — and learning — from others.
Smith says she honed her cooking skills with her grandmother, who taught her the basics of making pancakes, biscuits, and other staples of Southern cuisine.
Barton’s love of food developed over a decades-long career working in the restaurant industry. When he recites the names of the restaurants he’s cooked in, it’s like taking a trip through Fort Worth’s culinary history: “The Keg, Cattlemen’s, Winfield’s, J. T. McCords, Luminarias, and Calamity Jane’s,” he says. He cooks his barbecue in a similar fashion to how The Keg prepared its steaks, using a direct heat method.
Smith says The Lady and the Pit will be open by the end of June.
The Lady and the Pit 714 Main St., theharperfortworth.com
