Here’s the new westside Fort Worth home of an old local barbecue favorite
One of Texas’ best barbecue restaurants is now open in its new Fort Worth home.
BBQ on the Brazos, the highest-ranked area restaurant the last time Texas Monthly ranked the state’s best, opened Tuesday in a former British pub at 3803 Southwest Blvd. on the Benbrook Traffic Circle.
For co-owner John Sanford, it was back to work after a three-month hiatus while he moved his restaurant from Cresson, where it opened in 2013 in a gas station and later moved to a motorsports track.
The new location is near Edelweiss German Restaurant and Busy B’s Bakery, only blocks from where he started in the barbecue business, working a half-mile north at now-long-gone Rancher Bill’s.
“I knew how to barbecue and how to smoke, but I had never smoked for so many people,” he said Tuesday, taking a break as the lunch-only crowd waned.
“The meats are a lot better now. But you pay more. Nobody ever heard of choice or prime brisket then — it was $1.19 a pound.”
BBQ on the Brazos serves prime brisket, top-grade ribs, a San Antonio sausage and above-average sides like maque choux (Cajun corn), cornbread salad and twice-stuffed mashed potatoes.
For now, the restaurant is open only at lunch, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Sunday.
Sanford said he and barbecue partner Kathryn Warren will add dinner hours and more items later, including brisket burgers and steaks on weekends.
The large restaurant space was built in the mid-1950s and originally operated as a drugstore and soda fountain. It was remodeled in the mid-1960s to become a Holloway’s Fried Chicken and Steaks, then was a Jamie’s Hamburgers before taking on a rowdy life as a 1970s dance club, the Apple.
In 1977, a 20-year run of Tex-Mex restaurants began: Casa de Guillermo, La Fiesta, Miranda’s Mexican Food (now in Burleson) and Casa Hernandez. It became Giovanni’s Italian and finally the Royal Falcon, a British pub.
A column in the middle of the restaurant remains surrounded by mirrors, maybe from the old Apple disco days.
“That’s the only thing left of the old places,” Sanford said — “I don’t know whether I’ll leave them up.”
(He wouldn’t be alone. Nearby Billy’s Oak Acres BBQ, also taking over a former dance club, kept the disco ball.”
BBQ on the Brazos is one of more than 10 new craft barbecue restaurants opening in Fort Worth this year.
In the latest Texas Monthly Top 50 ranking of barbecue restaurants, in 2017, BBQ on the Brazos tied for third overall in Dallas-Fort Worth, behind only Cattleack BBQ in Farmers Branch and Hutchins BBQ in McKinney.
(A recent list of “The Top 25 New Barbecue Joints in Texas” included Panther City BBQ in the South Main Village nightlife district south of downtown.)
“There’s some pretty darn good kids out here now running barbecue restaurants,” Sanford said.
“A lot of people come here telling me they want to get into the barbecue business. I try to steer them to stay in school.”
For now, BBQ on the Brazos is open only at lunch daily except Monday; 817-386-2970, bbqonthebrazoscressontx.com.
BBQ on the Brazos’ original location in Cresson is now Rooster’s Bar-B-Q, operated by former Nashville pitmaster Rooster Beane, featured on an episode of “Man v. Food.”
This story was originally published October 23, 2019 at 5:45 AM.
