As WFAA reported, Todd Tonore already had the numbers on his first restaurant. The Vault Seafood & Steakhouse and the original El Primo's Mexican Grill & Cantina in Mansfield were pulling in $6 million to $7 million a year before he looked twelve miles north to a 17,000-square-foot warehouse in downtown Midlothian that had generated exactly nothing in city tax revenue. His plan for a second El Primo's turned that empty building into something Tonore said would be "worth somewhere in the neighborhood of about $6 million" once construction wrapped. He put it on Main Street, not the highway.
That choice matters this fall, because it's not the only one like it.
The Warehouse Behind a 600-Seat Restaurant
The building sits on a 17,000-square-foot footprint, with the restaurant itself occupying roughly 13,000 square feet and the remainder eyed for residential lofts. A July 2024 filing with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation put the interior and exterior renovation cost at around $3 million, with Southern Construction Management leading the build and Terry Hawkins of No. 10 Design Group as architect. Construction was slated to begin between August and September of 2024 and wrap by fall 2025. Tonore projected the finished space would seat about 600 people and employ 80 to 100 workers, numbers that mirror the Mansfield original almost exactly.
Tonore is also a member of Mansfield City Council, and he said that seat keeps him tuned in to what's happening in neighboring towns. He described the Mansfield location as a place "for the locals to go eat" that draws customers across income levels, and explained the logic behind building close to home rather than chasing a flashier zip code first: the restaurants are "easier to manage the closer they are." For a business owner who could have expanded almost anywhere in the fast-growing corridor south of Dallas, he picked a downtown warehouse that had been sitting vacant.
Highway 67 Chose a Different Kind of Growth
Four miles away, Main Street Towne Crossing has been filling in with a different profile of tenant. The development sits on the south side of West Main Street, east of Highway 67 and north of State Spur 73, across from Chase Bank and Taco Casa. Its first phase covers roughly 225,000 square feet of retail space, anchored by a Lowe's Home Improvement store that city council pushed to build with a more restrained, main-street-style exterior rather than the chain's typical big-box look. As of last fall, crews had begun moving dirt for a second Chick-fil-A location on the same site, and the developer had told city council early on that it was working to land Chipotle as a tenant.
Of the restaurant additions at Towne Crossing discussed here, Mo' Bettahs is the only one to have opened so far, at 201 Nicolette Creek Road, Suite 131, on June 26, 2026. Founded in Bountiful, Utah, in 2008 by Kimo and Kalani Mack, the chain has grown past 75 locations across Utah, Idaho, Oklahoma, Texas, Nevada, and beyond. The Midlothian store runs Monday through Saturday, 10:30 a.m. to 10 p.m., closed Sundays. It's a solid addition to the corridor, and it's also a national chain landing inside a shopping center built around a home improvement anchor. Nothing about Towne Crossing's tenant list so far is locally owned.
Main Street's Own Momentum
Downtown didn't wait for Towne Crossing to finish building before it built its own case. The Lawson District, a redevelopment of historic buildings along Main Street, officially opened with three businesses already running: Roma's Italian Bistro, The Dessert Bar, and O'Brien's Bookshop. City economic development staff described the project as designed to serve as a hub for dining, retail, and community activity in Midlothian, with additional tenants preparing to open behind those first three.
A separate project called Founders Row put up a new building to give Soco Coffee, a local shop that had been operating without a permanent home, its own physical space. Between the Lawson District's three tenants, Founders Row's coffee build, and El Primo's warehouse conversion, downtown Midlothian has picked up more locally rooted, sit-down and stay-a-while businesses than the highway corridor has, even though the highway corridor is where the big anchor tenants and national chains are landing.
What Hasn't Moved At All
None of this displaced the parts of downtown that were already working. The Midlothian Downtown Business Association still runs a Saturday farmers market at Heritage Park from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., May through December, with artisan vendors and a fresh vegetable stand. The same organization puts on the annual Scarecrow Festival at Heritage Park every fall, the kind of tradition that keeps running regardless of what's under construction a few blocks over.
The city's Autumn Beats concert series is back at the Art Pierard Memorial Amphitheater in Community Park, free and open to the public, with shows from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m.
| Date | Performer |
|---|---|
| September 12 | Champagne Yacht Rock |
| October 3 | 90 Proof |
| November 7 | Private Orchid Band |
The first date has already passed. Two shows are still ahead this season, both free, both at the same amphitheater that's hosted the series since it opened.
Two Directions, One Fall
Walk Main Street this season and you'll pass a warehouse rebuilt for a 600-seat restaurant, a redeveloped historic block with an Italian bistro, a dessert shop, and a bookstore, and a new building put up just to give a local coffee shop a permanent address. Drive Highway 67 instead and you'll pass a Lowe's built to look less like a big box, a second Chick-fil-A on the way, and a Hawaiian plate lunch chain that's been open since late June. Both are real growth. They're just not the same kind, and they're not happening in the same place.
If you're weighing what a season like this means for Midlothian's neighborhoods going forward, The Royal Group is glad to talk through it, block by block. Schedule a consultation today.
