Haltom City's H Mart Plaza Is Already a Destination, and the Grocery Store Hasn't Opened Yet

Why is a shopping center named for a grocery store busy when the grocery store isn't open? Crews put the H Mart letters on the building at Loop 820 and North Beach Street on Sept. 18. By then, Haltom City's economic development director, Robert Briggs, told the Fort Worth Report that the center was already drawing 6,000 to 8,000 visitors a day to the restaurants and shops that had opened that year.

The anchor store is arriving last, after the place it anchors has already caught on. That order matters if you live in northeast Tarrant County. The plaza's character is being set right now by its kitchens and dessert counters, and the supermarket will open into it.

The Anchor Comes Last, and the Crowds Came First

The development is H Mart Plaza, a 50-acre mixed-use project at 3920 NE Loop 820 in Haltom City. Every space is leased, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. The center will hold 45 restaurants and stores in total. As of the Fort Worth Report's Sept. 21 story, Briggs counted 22 tenants operating, three of them in soft opening, and 23 still to come.

So about half the center was carrying the whole draw. The city tracks foot traffic with an AI platform, and by late September it estimated 634,000 visits to the complex. Haltom City leaders predicted that kind of pull from across the region, and Briggs says the numbers are bearing it out.

The supermarket's own timing is less settled. A city spokesperson told the Star-Telegram that H Mart would "be open before Thanksgiving; however, it could be sooner." In a Sept. 15 email to the paper, H Mart said, "We do not have a confirmed timeline yet." The company had already pushed the opening back in April because of supply chain problems. Thanksgiving falls on Nov. 26, about five weeks from now. That holiday is the city's target, and H Mart has not confirmed an opening date.

What's Drawing the Crowds Without a Grocery Store

The tenants open now fall into a few groups. Most offer something you can't easily get at home: a tabletop grill, a fresh-from-the-oven cheesecake, a claw machine.

Dinners where you do the cooking

• Wooga Korean BBQ by Chodang Village grills at the table and serves traditional banchan before the meal.
• It's KBBQ & Shabu Shabu is all-you-can-eat Korean barbecue.
• Tasty Pot serves Taiwanese hot pot in individual portions. It soft-opened Sept. 24 and held its grand opening Oct. 2.

Bowls and plates

• Hanabi is a Japanese ramen shop and izakaya.
• Kin Pho serves Vietnamese pho alongside Lao-Thai dishes.
• Yindee Thai Eatery comes from the family behind Fort Worth's Spice.
• The Kickin' Crab does Cajun-style seafood boils.

Sweets and drinks

• Uncle Tetsu opened its first North Texas bakery here. Store manager Adaline White told the Star-Telegram she often sells more than 200 Japanese soufflé cheesecakes a day, with more on weekends. Flavors include original, ube, pandan coconut, strawberry and cookies and cream.
• 85°C Bakery Cafe is a Taiwanese bakery and café.
• Hui Lau Shan specializes in Hong Kong mango desserts.
• Bambu serves Vietnamese dessert drinks and boba.
• Cafe BomBom & XO Corndog pairs Korean corn dogs with boba.

After dark and just browsing

• Dal Pocha is a late-night Korean pub.
• Teso Life is a Japanese lifestyle department store, and yes, it stocks Lay's Fish & Chips-flavored chips.
• Bandai Gashapon sells Japanese capsule toys.
• ClawZania Fort Worth and Claw Mania Kingdom are both claw machine arcades.

The plaza also has everyday services that have nothing to do with food: a McDonald's, the Our Hair salon and head spa, Dia Dental Studio, Flossophy Dental Studio with evening hours, and SolidSight eye care. With those in the mix, a dentist appointment and a bowl of pho can share the same parking lot.

The Drive This Plaza Replaces

The visitor numbers make more sense once you know where people used to go. Hao Tran owns Hao's Grocery & Café on the Near Southside and is getting ready to open Hao's Duong DeVille in White Settlement. She described the old routine to the Fort Worth Report:

"We've been wanting it, we've been needing it for our own community. We've always had to drive to Carrollton or Richardson."

She doesn't see the center as competition. In her words, the Metroplex now has "two concentric circles," one around Dallas and one around Fort Worth. For Tarrant County cooks, many ingredients and dishes that used to require a trip across the Metroplex now sit off Loop 820.

Kevin Martinez, chef at the Fort Worth Club's athletic center, told the Fort Worth Report what the store could mean for home cooks and professional kitchens. He expects H Mart to carry a different range of fish than traditional supermarkets. He also points out that buying small quantities lets a chef try an ingredient "and don't have to sit on a whole case of something." He describes the trip the plaza makes possible as picking up "a small amount of this, a small amount of that," then staying for lunch.

That trip depends on both halves of the plaza. The restaurants already supply the lunch. The supermarket will supply the shopping, and the other half of the tenant list will add more reasons to stay.

What the Second Half Adds

The 23 tenants still to come, as listed in the Fort Worth Report's Sept. 21 story, expand the categories that are already working instead of starting new ones:

• More noodles and rice: Mensho for Japanese ramen, CoCo Ichibanya for Japanese curry rice, and Maht Gaek for Korean home-style cooking.
• Sushi at two price points: Suka Omakase and the all-you-can-eat Nigori Sushi & Grill.
• More casual dining: bb.q Chicken for Korean fried chicken, Korean Seafood, Momo & Bun for Nepalese dumplings, and Tu Chilito for tacos.
• A deeper dessert lineup: Somisomi's soft-serve taiyaki, Sulbing shaved ice, Eiswelt Gelato and Hey Yogurt.
• Tea and coffee: Chicha San Chen, R&B Tea, Tsaocaa and Trung Nguyen Vietnamese coffee.
• Entertainment and retail: Bada Golf indoor simulators, a Potobox photo booth and Miniso.

Two names don't agree from one list to the next. The Fort Worth Report's Sept. 21 story had Kinokuniya, the Japanese bookstore, and Ten Thousand Coffee as coming soon. The Star-Telegram's late-September Uncle Tetsu story listed both among the stores already open. If either one is the reason for your trip, check its own page before you go.

Once everything is open, Haltom City expects the center to bring in about $1.1 million a year in gross sales tax, Briggs told the Fort Worth Report. He called the plaza "a catalyst for development" and said interest in other sites around the city is rising.

Before You Go

1. Use the right address. The plaza's address is 3920 NE Loop 820, but individual storefronts have their own numbers. Uncle Tetsu, for example, is at 3970 NE Loop 820, Suite 700.
2. Plan around bakery hours. Uncle Tetsu is open every day from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. The manager says the bakery often sells more than 200 cheesecakes a day and more on weekends, and the store opened to long lines.
3. Don't build Thanksgiving shopping around the supermarket yet. The city says H Mart will open before the holiday. H Mart's last public word, on Sept. 15, was that it had no confirmed timeline. H Mart has more than 97 stores in the U.S., including several in Texas. Until this one announces a date, the trip to Carrollton or Richardson that Hao Tran described is still the fallback.
4. Expect the tenant list to change week to week. About half the center was open in late September, and soft openings like Tasty Pot's turn into grand openings with little notice.

The H Mart letters went up Sept. 18, and by then about half the plaza was already serving customers.

If you'd like to talk about what's changing along the Loop 820 corridor in Haltom City, Edge Real Estate is glad to share what we're seeing. Let's Connect.