The biggest flops of 2019: Restaurants that closed, including a Punch Bowl-sized bust
The biggest bust in Fort Worth in 2019 was a $2.5 million Punch Bowl.
Colorado-based Punch Bowl Social opened July 27 in a former winery in the West 7th area. It closed 10 weeks later.
To be fair, the Fort Worth location wasn’t an abysmal failure. The company simply changed focus in July when Cracker Barrel invested $140 million.
A Dallas location had its own problems, getting the first zero-star review in memory from The Dallas Morning News.
The Fort Worth Punch Bowl Social had the same problem as most of West 7th and Crockett Row: It was mostly a bar and had little to offer as a restaurant.
There was an incredible amount of unnecessary design, including French furnishings in honor of World War I French Gen, Ferdinand Foch and robin-print wallpaper in honor of the 1957 hit song “Rockin’ Robin” by obscure Fort Worth wonder Bobby Day.
The karaoke room was decorated in possums for the 1994 Toadies hit “Possum Kingdom.”
The brunch featured biscuits and strawberry-ginger jam, but besides that the menu didn’t quite work.
Punch Bowl Social is survived by a half-dozen other bars in the West 7th/Crockett Row area that serve food but shouldn’t be mistaken for restaurants.
▪ Nearby, an ever-changing space at the back of Montgomery Plaza also changed again.
Barrel & Bones and Bourbon Street Oyster were the eighth and ninth restaurants to close in the rear of the plaza shops,
A Blizzard of DQ closings
The demise of Dairy Queen was already a big story in 2019 before Dark Monday.
The sinking of the franchise restaurant once called the “Texas stop sign” — more popular in small-town Texas than Whataburger — has been a long, slow decline.
Fort Worth was shocked in September, when a 51-year-old Dairy Queen on Montgomery Street closed. The land was sold for new development across from the new Dickies Arena.
Then came Dec. 9, when nine nearly new suburban Dairy Queens closed.
The Southlake franchisee had bought expensive real estate and built large restaurants with freezer cases full of ice cream cakes.
Nine Dairy Queens remain open in Tarrant County.
Trouble at the taco stand
The doors remain closed at Yucatan Taco Stand.
The 11-year-old restaurant at 909 W. Magnolia Ave. went on one of the worst losing streaks in memory in August, flunking back-to-back kitchen health inspections.
It was bad enough when the restaurant was inspected Aug. 7 and city officials found unclean food preparation surfaces, a wastewater backup and improper food storage.
Then — this is almost unheard-of — Yucatan flunked a second inspection.
The restaurant passed an inspection and reopened for a couple of weeks, but has closed again.
The owner, Athena Navarro Hinkhouse of Dallas, says the restaurant is still closed for kitchen remodeling.
This story was originally published December 31, 2019 at 5:45 AM.
