Chef Point was started as an idea nearly 2 years before the business materialized. Paula and Franson successfully acquired a bank loan on January 1, 2003, completed construction and opened their facility in April of the same year. The restaurant grew at a much faster rate than expected. Within the first four months they had to redesign the layout of the facility to add more space to the restaurant and reduce the convenience store square footage. By early 2004 they again had to redesign the facility to increase the size of the restaurant.
Much of Chef Point’s growth has come from the local media releasing the secrets of the incredible 5 Star Food in a gas station! Channel 11 has aired five stories and Channel 5 has aired two stories, CNBC picked up the story and ran it nationwide, Channel 8 aired a story through the “Why Guy”, the radio station 820AM and the Kitchen Sisters form NPR have done interviews with the couple, and the Star Telegram has released eight articles. They were the 2nd place Mayors award winner in 2004 for the Northeast TasteFest Event and the 1st place winner for the Peoples Choice Award in the 2005 Northeast TasteFest Event. In addition, Chef Point won the 2005 Fort Worth Mayors Award. This award was delivered at the 2005 annual Entrepreneur Expo in front of 2000 people.