Kincaid’s Hamburgers in Fort Worth: The Old Grocery Store Burger Joint on Camp Bowie

The counters at Kincaid’s Hamburgers on Camp Bowie Boulevard used to be grocery shelves. That one detail tells you most of what you need to know about this Fort Worth institution: it started as a neighborhood market, the burgers came almost by accident, and the place has kept much of its old bones while generations of locals lined up for lunch.

A grocery store that started selling burgers

Kincaid’s traces its roots to 1946, when a grocery store opened on the west side of Fort Worth. For years it was a regular neighborhood market with a meat counter. According to the restaurant’s history as summarized on Wikipedia, the store’s head butcher, O.R. Gentry, started grilling hamburgers in the 1960s as a way to use up ground beef that hadn’t sold.

The burgers caught on, and the grocery side gradually faded as big supermarkets took over. Gentry eventually bought the business, and his family later turned the old store fully into a restaurant. Along the way, shelving was cut down to make the stand-up counters customers still lean on today, and the concrete floors and vintage neon stayed put.

What to order

The Kincaid’s website says its patties are ground in house from Black Angus beef that’s never frozen, and the original hamburger is still the order most folks come for. The menu has grown beyond that, though, so there’s something for everyone at the table:

• Original and signature hamburgers
• Hand-battered onion rings and other homemade sides
• Chili cheese dogs and sandwiches
• Hand-dipped Blue Bell milkshakes and banana pudding
• Kids’ meals and cold beer

Prices aren’t posted on the website, so plan on checking the menu board when you get there.

Why the Camp Bowie location is the one to visit

Kincaid’s now has five locations around Tarrant County, including two more in Fort Worth plus Southlake and Arlington. They all serve the same burgers, but the original at 4901 Camp Bowie Blvd. is where the history lives. This is the old grocery building, with the cut-down shelf counters and the neon signs, and it’s the reason Kincaid’s shows up on so many best-burger lists over the years.

Camp Bowie Boulevard itself is worth a slow drive. Stretches of it are still paved in red brick, and it runs west from Fort Worth’s Cultural District, home to several of the city’s big museums. A burger lunch followed by an afternoon at a museum makes a good, easy day.

Timing your visit

Heads up: the Camp Bowie store keeps shorter hours than the newer locations. It closes at 8 p.m. Monday through Saturday and at 3 p.m. on Sunday, so it’s really a lunch-and-early-supper spot. The weekday lunch hour gets busy with the neighborhood crowd, and a mid-afternoon visit is usually calmer.

Fort Worth sits in Tarrant County, about 45 minutes west of downtown Dallas and roughly three hours north of Austin. If you’re making a weekend of it, the State Fair of Texas runs in Dallas through Oct. 18 this year, and Fort Worth’s Stockyards are about 15 minutes from Camp Bowie.

A reputation that goes back decades

Kincaid’s didn’t just become a local habit. Over the years it has turned up in rankings from Texas Monthly and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and a national magazine piece in the 1970s counted it among the best burgers in the country. That kind of attention can change a place, but the Camp Bowie store still feels like a neighborhood joint, with families, office workers and retirees sharing the same counters at lunch.

Part of the charm is that nothing about it is fussy. You come for a burger, maybe some onion rings and a shake, and you leave full without much ceremony. If you’re the type who likes your food with a side of history, ask about the old grocery fixtures while you’re there. The staff and regulars are used to the question.

Make an afternoon of it

Since Camp Bowie leads straight toward the Cultural District, it’s easy to pair lunch with the Kimbell Art Museum, the Amon Carter Museum of American Art or the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, all a short drive east. Check each museum’s own website for current hours and admission before you go.

Hours, dates and prices can change. Check the official website before you head out.

There are fancier burgers in Fort Worth these days, but few with a story like this one. Belly up to an old grocery shelf, unwrap a burger made the way it’s been made for decades, and you’ll understand why Kincaid’s has kept its following all these years.

Featured photo: David via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0.