Drive south on US-377 through Argyle and you will pass three buildings that most people stopped noticing years ago. One was a gas station built in the 1960s, the kind with a canopy over the pumps and a convenience store selling milk and lottery tickets. One was a Cajun kitchen that closed and sat quiet. One was a coffee shop that changed hands. None of them looked like the future of anything.
In the span of about two years, all three became something else, and the person who decided what came next in each case already had a life in Argyle before they signed the lease.
That is not how growth usually works along a highway corridor in a fast-expanding suburb. Usually the story is which national chain moves fastest. A few miles north at Harvest Town Center, that story has been playing out for a couple of years now. Chuy's landed there this year, joining a Chick-fil-A and a Tom Thumb-anchored lineup. That is one common pattern of growth. The businesses on 377 followed a different path.
The Gas Station That Became a Farmhouse
The first stop is at 401 Highway 377, a building that spent more than fifty years as a residence, a fueling station, and a market before Jim Reid bought it, as the Cross Timbers Gazette reported. Reid is a real estate developer who had already done this once, in Houston, where he converted an old auto shop into a restaurant called Little Matt's. In Argyle, he built Little Joe's Farmstead.
Reid has said the needs of families facing pediatric cancer shaped Little Joe's Farmstead. According to CBS Texas, the restaurant funds chemotherapy, radiation, and housing costs for families going through pediatric cancer treatment, supporting roughly 400 to 500 kids a month.
The building itself now looks closer to a Napa Valley farmhouse than a former Johnny Joe's convenience store, with rocking chairs on the porch and a full-service coffee bar inside. Since opening in October 2024, it has become enough of a fixture that the Town of Argyle's Municipal Development District approved a $100,000 grant last year to help fund a walk-up ice cream counter and additional site work, a project Argyle council member Cynthia Hermann said she drives by with pride. A breast cancer benefit hosted there raised $250,000 for five women's treatments. None of that reads like a restaurant that opened, got reviewed, and moved on to the next news cycle. It reads like something the town decided to help keep around.
The Barbecue Family That Didn't Need a Reason to Come Home
A short distance down the highway sits the second building, a space that had been home to St. Argyle's, a Cajun kitchen that closed and left the storefront empty, as the Cross Timbers Gazette reported. Hurtado Barbecue took it over last year, and the detail worth sitting with is that Brandon and Hannah Hurtado did not need Argyle.
By the time they signed that lease, Hurtado Barbecue already had four other locations across Arlington, Dallas, Fort Worth, and Mansfield, plus a permanent concession stand at Globe Life Field as the official barbecue of the Texas Rangers and an honorable mention on Texas Monthly's list of the state's top barbecue joints. The couple built the brand from a backyard smoker in 2018 into something with real reach across North Texas. They chose to open a fifth location in their own zip code anyway.
Brandon Hurtado explained the decision in a Facebook post at the time of the lease signing, saying he had spent years raising his family in Argyle, coaching sports there, and delivering food to friends and neighbors nearby before finally getting the chance to open in the town he already called home. Argyle Mayor Ron Schmidt welcomed the news publicly, telling Cross Timbers Gazette that Hurtado, alongside Quandary Kitchen, represented some of the newest unique dining experiences taking shape along what he described as the town's new Main Street vision.
The corridor's story does not end with Hurtado Barbecue.
A Third Name Worth Knowing
The third building sits at 429 US-377, previously home to Kimzey's Coffee. Quandary Kitchen & Market opened there in November 2025, according to reporting from the Denton Record-Chronicle, adding a market-style concept to the same short run of highway that now includes a farmhouse cafe with a nonprofit mission and a nationally recognized pitmaster's hometown location.
Three sit-down concepts, none of them chains, all within about a two-year window, on a stretch of road that most people driving through would have described a few years ago as forgettable.
What Fills a Building Says Something About a Town
Every fast-growing suburb in North Texas has an intersection like the one forming at Harvest Town Center. A national brand needs a location, the traffic counts and rooftop projections work, and a building goes up. That kind of growth happens with or without Argyle specifically. It would happen at nearly any exit along I-35W with similar numbers.
What happened on 377 is a different kind of decision. Jim Reid brought a charitable mission to this building, and the Hurtados opened a location in their own town. Together, these examples show how local ties can shape where businesses open.
For residents, the practical result is straightforward. A drive to Fort Worth or Arlington is no longer required for the kind of Tex-Mex-influenced smoked meat Hurtado built its name on, and a farmhouse breakfast with a coffee bar and an ice cream counter is now a few minutes away instead of a special-occasion trip. The restaurants on 377 add to the range of dining options around Argyle.
If you have lived in Argyle long enough to remember what any of these three buildings used to be, you have seen the corridor change. If you are newer to town, these stories offer a glimpse of how businesses are changing the corridor.
Tamara Thompson has spent years working alongside the builders, business owners, and neighbors who make North Texas towns like Argyle feel distinct rather than interchangeable, and she enjoys nothing more than talking through what is actually changing on the ground here. If you want the local read on what is happening in Argyle beyond the headlines, Tamara Thompson would love to hear from you. Let's Connect.
