The town of Trophy Club "cannot get any bigger," says Mayor Nick Sanders. The 4.2-square-mile bedroom community tucked among Westlake, Roanoke, Southlake, Flower Mound and Lake Grapevine is home to just 13,500 people. A scant 12 residential lots remain in the whole town.
Once homes pop up on those lots — and they will — "we will be built out," Sanders says. But there's more building to do.
For at least 18 years, Trophy Club's elected officials and members of the economic development board have tried to keep up with their bigger, bolder neighbors. At dinnertime, most residents would ditch their golf carts — which are allowed on Trophy Club's resort-style residential streets — and drive to Southlake or Roanoke, cities booming with new commercial projects.
"I used to say, we are becoming the hole in the doughnut," Sanders says. "Southlake, Westlake, Flower Mound and Roanoke are all developing. ... We don't want to be the hole."
Sanders is an unpaid mayor finishing his third and final term, and he's part of a team incentivizing restaurants to take an interest in Trophy Club, that far-out golfers' community with residents who "sure do love to drink" — if only they had more places in town to do it.
Today, restaurants like the barbecue joint Meat U Anywhere and Bread Winners Cafe are giving Trophy Club residents big-city-style dining near home.
With Bread Winners, the town of Trophy Club went so far as to buy plots of land on SH-114, sell them to developers and offer deals to restaurants: a sales-tax funded rebate, paid over 20 years, and a tax increment reinvestment zone.
"People think restaurant development happens quickly," Sanders says: "It doesn't."
One of the last free-standing restaurants to be built is HG Sply Co., opening Aug. 21, 2019. The 28,000-square-foot behemoth on 2 acres of land will be the biggest HG Sply Co. in existence — and the biggest restaurant in Trophy Club. It took some convincing, HG owner Elias Pope admits, for him to agree to open a restaurant so far from the nucleus of North Texas.
The front of the restaurant will house a Mudsmith coffee shop, a popular Dallas concept started by bar maven Brooke Humphries. An adjoining room will be a coworking space, made for anyone who wants a semi-permanent place to work, with a stylish interior that pulls inspiration from the Ace Hotel in New York.
The hustle-bustle of HG begins in the next room. It's intended to be a family-friendly place — which is essential, given the thousands of families living nearby and the 6A high school in Trophy Club. Pope gets it: "I have five kids, so it's easy to know how to build seating for families."
Some elements of this new HG Sply Co. will mirror a new restaurant Pope just opened in Dallas called Hero. (It, too, is a giant place, at 25,000 square feet.) Trophy Club's HG Sply Co. will have a covered patio and games inside and out: pool tables, arcade games, shuffle board and the like.
On the menu, Trophy Club's HG Sply Co. will be very similar to the original HG Sply Co. on Greenville Avenue in Dallas. There's burgers, tacos, bowls and more, but any menu item can be made gluten-free or non-dairy. Unlike the Greenville Avenue restaurant, Trophy Club's menu will also have nine dishes from Hero — more indulgent options.
Pope also plans to host movie nights for kids out on the patio. The idea is to let kids be kids — but also let adults be adults.
"I like to have a mimosa while my five kids are playing," he says, "but I don't like to have a mimosa if my five kids don't have the space to play." (It goes without saying that space is not an issue at HG.)
He notes that this area, northwest of Dallas and northeast of Fort Worth, is "the financial hub of D-FW," and he hopes he'll find customers at the nearby campuses for Deloitte, Fidelity and Charles Schwab.
For a town that's been pining after fun, family-friendly restaurants, HG Sply Co. is a good get. It might mean that Trophy Club can snag other restaurants with Dallas roots, Sanders hopes.
"When you get an HG, with its traffic, and a Bread Winners, with its traffic, and with 114 getting busier," Sanders says, "somebody else is going to say, 'I want to be there.'"
HG Sply Co. is located at 2980 Highway 114, Trophy Club.
Look inside the new HG Sply Co. in Trophy Club:
