The owner of Reata Restaurant in Fort Worth's Sundance Square says the organization has refused to renew his lease. Mike Micallef has had the current location at Houston and 3rd for almost 20 years, since May of 2002.
Micallef opened his first Reata location in Alpine, in West Texas, in 1995. He opened his second location in Fort Worth at the top of the Bank One Tower a year later. When the tornado hit Downtown Fort Worth in 2000, Micallef ultimately moved into his current location.
"At the current site, we've asked for renewal. We haven't gotten it," Micallef said. "We've got to start moving forward and looking toward the future. The important thing for Reata is not, 'where has the best been for Reata in the past?' It's really, for us, where is the best place for Reata going to be in the next 20 years?"
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Micallef says he has reached out to Sundance Square, asking to renew his lease, which expires in 2024. He says he also asked for face-to-face meetings, and Sundance Square has refused.
"As for landlord-tenant issues, these are not publicly discussed by Sundance Square," Sundance Square's Bryan Eppstein wrote in a statement.
Among issues Micallef has cited is an increased cost for parking at Sundance Square. He says Reata initially paid $3 a car, then $4. Micallef says new management brought into Sundance Square in January 2020 has increased the price to $7 every 30 minutes, with a maximum of $21.
"The cost of valet has impacted us," Micallef said. "You can set up a business dinner upstairs, but then anybody who attends that dinner is probably going to end up paying $21 plus fees for parking. That's significant, especially when you take a look at our menu prices."
Micallef says Reata operated its own valet service until 2015.
"I don't mind paying four dollars for a customer to enjoy a free valet, but I can't subsidize valet at $7 every 30 minutes," Micallef said. "We care about the total guest experience. That's from the person calling to make a reservation, parking, eating here at the restaurant, picking up their car afterwards. That all matters."
Eppstein, with Sundance Square, says tenants receive free parking weeknights and weekends and 2 1/2 hours of free self-parking weekdays from 7 am to 6 pm.
"Interestingly too, all restaurants in Sundance Square have the option to pay for part (or all) of their customer’s valet parking … and Reata does not participate in this program," Eppstein wrote.
Micallef says he has started looking at other locations when his lease is up in 2024 and hopes to identify a location next year. He says he is looking for 12,000 to 20,000 square feet with 200 parking spaces or two acres of undeveloped land. Micallef says several people have already reached out with ideas and potential locations.
He says he currently employs 145 people and has paid $2.8 million in sales tax since 2019 and $11 million in liquor taxes over the past decade.
Andy Taft, president of Downtown Fort Worth Inc, says he would "work very hard to keep them downtown." Taft says convention traffic has picked up from the pandemic, and Texas A&M's plan to expand its law school and add a research center has helped downtown, as a whole, recover.
"One of the great things about downtown is we're starting to see life again on the streets," Taft said. "Special events are about to happen. Main Street Arts Festival is happening next week."
Taft says about 60% of office workers have returned downtown from the pandemic.
"We're seeing that number increase every month," Taft said. "There is a lot of work that goes into recruiting and maintaining tenants in downtown restaurant spaces and office spaces, too. We all want to do that."
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