A revered foodie emporium from Houston is expanding to Dallas: Tres Market Foods, a market-cafe which specializes in homey prepared foods done better than what you'd do at home, is opening its first location outside Houston, in a prime Dallas neighborhood straddling buzzy Knox Street and Highland Park.
The shop will be located at 4919 McKinney Ave., where McKinney Avenue and Harvard split off into a vee, in what was previously an employment office.
This will be the third Tres Market Foods but their first in Dallas, following locations in two of Houston's ritziest neighborhoods, Memorial and River Oaks, AKA the equivalent of Highland Park.
Tres (pronounced "trace") Market Foods was founded in 2001 by Julie Rhyne and Jeannine Holland, two Houston moms who saw a gap in the market for homemade prepared meals. A sign at their River Oaks shop sums it up: "We make life delicious and easy."
It's a specialty grocery store, cafe, bakery, boutique wine shop, and coffee shop. But at their core, they offer a huge selection of prepared foods, numbering more than 350 homemade options. Everything is made on the premises.
Their food is like a gourmet version of home-cooked food, with fresh and frozen entrees in a variety of sizes, from singles to family-sized meals. Typical entrees include meatloaf, chicken with garlic mashed potatoes, lasagna, and shepherd's pie.
There are salads and sides, and their bakery offers an irresistible assortment of pies, cakes, croissants, cobblers, brownies, blueberry muffins, lemon bars, and cookies. They also sell their cookie dough so you can bake it at home.
Trio of sweet breads in pretty Tres Market Foods packingTres Market Foods
They do a brisk boxed-lunch business with items such as chicken salad sandwiches, fruit, a bag of chips, and a cookie for $12.
They also have a pantry's worth of grocery goods such as specialty cheeses, cured meats, pickled vegetables, vinegars, jams, and wine. They're a handy place if you want to get a foodie gift basket and have a nook with ribbons and other charming packaging.
Decor is modern, with open kitchens, white countertops, and track lighting. If you want a breakfast taco or a scone, they have seating with an in-house coffee bar with lattes and other espresso drinks.
It's still very early in the process for the Dallas spinoff, but they anticipate a 3,700-square-foot space plus sizable patio and that oh-so valuable amenity, a parking lot right behind the building.
Tres Market Foods combines market, cafe, bakery, and wine shop.Tres Market Foods
The expansion to Dallas is being overseen by Rhyne's daughter Lauren Van Wagenen, who became a Dallas resident after she graduated from SMU in 2007.
"I've been begging for a location in Dallas for years," Van Wagenen says, who began scouting for the right spot in 2021.
"It took us a year to find this location, but once we saw it, we knew it was perfect, and we've got an incredible partner in our landlord, Streetlights Residential, who are helping us shepherd the project through the construction process," she says.
Van Wagenen has a degree in accounting and left a career in finance for this venture. She'll be operating manager of the Dallas store, partnered with the founders.
"But this is absolutely Julie and Jeannine's concept, and they've been gracious about allowing me to take it a step further," Wagenen says.
"If you asked my dream job, it was always to work for Tres Market," she says. "My family has always loved cooking and these are all the recipes my mom made that we grew up with."
The wraparound porch at Docent Steak.Photo courtesy of Harwood Hospitality
Docent's high-energy lower level.Photo courtesy of Harwood Hospitality