Texas pizza pioneer Campisi’s, a Dallas landmark since 1946, will open its first Tarrant County location in November on Camp Bowie in Ridglea, owner David Campisi confirmed Monday.
Construction has begun on a 5,000-square-foot restaurant, bar and patio at 6150 Camp Bowie Blvd., filling in a historic strip shopping center vacancy that was formerly a phone store near La Madeleine French Bakery & Cafe, Campisi said.
Campisi said the family has considered newer Fort Worth locations but wanted an “established neighborhood with a lot of history.”
The Camp Bowie Boulevard area “reminds me of Highland Park Village or Casa Linda in Dallas,” he said, referring to similar postwar strip shopping centers that were among the nation’s first.
“We don’t want to come over and be in with a lot of restaurants from Dallas. We want to be part of a Fort Worth neighborhood. I went to Texas Tech, and I’ve got enough West Texas in me to know that you don’t just walk in with your chest out talking about Dallas.”
Campisi’s took over an old Dallas bar, the Egyptian Lounge, and began serving its family-recipe rectangular, thin-crust pizzas made with smoked provolone, homemade sausage, salami and finely chopped peppers and onions.
The company had grown from its flagship Mockingbird Lane location to eight restaurants in Dallas, Plano, Frisco and recently, Rockwall.
Campisi’s claims to have introduced pizza to Dallas and returning soldiers after World War II. (Pizza came to Fort Worth in 1952 at Margie’s Italian Gardens on Camp Bowie Boulevard West and the former Italian Inn, according to Star-Telegram archives.)
