2021 Fort Worth restaurant recap: The No. 1 brisket, plus big pizzas and doughnuts
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New dining for the new year
After a 2021 COVID-19 spike kept pro rodeo cowboys sidelined and slowed the opening of the new Stockyards entertainment district, major chef-driven restaurants are now under construction across Fort Worth.
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The year 2021 brought Fort Worth bigger pizzas, hotter chicken, fancier doughnuts and the city’s first open-air rooftop restaurant.
Oh — and robot servers.
But more than anything else, 2021 will be remembered as the year the Texas Legislature made it a priority to legalize margaritas and mixed drinks to go.
Take-home cocktails came to every bar menu, some in fancy thermal coolers and others in used plastic lemonade jugs.
They helped restaurants and patrons make it through a year of fluctuating COVID-19 cases that not only slowed business but also complicated staffing and supply orders.
Here are a few of the the dining highlights and lowlights of 2021, a year that saw about 80 openings of local, unique restaurants and about 30 closings.
Cowtown barbecue rules Texas
Texas Monthly magazine named Fort Worth the new capital of Texas barbecue, drawing long lines to state No. 1-ranked Goldee’s, 4645 Dick Price Road in rural southeast Tarrant County.
But the hunt for the perfect brisket didn’t stop there. Lines grew at No. 10 Panther City BBQ, 201 E. Pennsylvania Ave. (East Hattie Street), along with Fort Worth top-50 Dayne’s Craft Barbecue, 2735 W. Fifth St., and Smoke-A-Holics BBQ, 1417 Evans Ave.
All were more than a year old, but the sudden following meant they all broke onto the scene like new restaurants. Other restaurants reported spillover business, and several restaurants launched a new local specialty: smoked-chicken salad.
One old-time restaurant, Smokey’s BBQ, closed after 41 years. Also, much-traveled pitmaster Billy Woodrich took his barbecue and chicken-fried steak from Rufus Bar & Grill to West Texas and the new Billy’s in Cisco.
Lady & The Pit, 5301 E. Lancaster Ave., known more for home cooking, reopened in that new location.
Late in the year, the new F1 Smokehouse truck opened behind a bicycle shop at 4801 Edwards Ranch Road. Owner Felipe Armenta has six other restaurants, including 2021 addition Maria’s Mexican Kitchen, 1712 S. University Drive.
Sky-high dining
RTB — it stands for “roof top bar” — opened atop the Sinclair hotel, 512 Main St., offering a light menu and a full 360-degree view of the city from the open-air 17th floor.
It opened almost simultaneously with Refinery 714, the enclosed 24th-floor bar in the Kimpton Harper hotel, 714 Main St.
Both joined Branch & Bird, on the 12th floor at 640 Taylor St., and Ático, six floors up at 2315 N. Main St. in the Stockyards, as the city’s skyline restaurants.
Dark storefronts
A two-month experiment ended abruptly for Dallas’ Revolver Taco Lounge in Sundance Square, where several anchor restaurant spaces remain vacant as the retail center swaps out previous tenants.
Fred’s Texas Cafe and Dallas’ highly regarded Blue Fish Sushi left the Crockett Row and West 7th district, as the surrounding development continues to market mostly to late-night drinkers and bar crowds, not diners. Fred’s announced a move to 7101 Camp Bowie Blvd. W.
The Stockyards boom
The opening of the Hotel Drover, 200 Mule Alley, and new attractions in the Stockyards made north Fort Worth a regional tourist and shopping attraction, with mixed results for restaurants.
The Drover and its 97 West steakhouse and patio drew overflow crowds despite staffing struggles. Some found their way to nearby restaurants such as chef Marcus Paslay’s Provender Hall, 122 E. Exchange Ave., and breakfast or coffee shops.
Uphill, restaurants like Hookers Grill, 213 W. Exchange Ave., drew crowds for its connection to “1883,” a “Yellowstone” spinoff. But chef Grady Spears’ Horseshoe Hill Cafe foundered amid a legal dispute, and some staff members opened the Brand Room, 212 W. Exchange Ave.
Bigger, hotter, fancier
Extreme food — those circus-like items that are extra large, extra spicy, extra unusual or extra topped — continued to dominate new restaurant openings.
Indiana-based Parlor Doughnuts, 6547 Lake Worth Blvd., is the best of the new doughnut shops, serving a wide variety of croissant-like “cronuts,” with sugar-free, zero-carb options and coffees.
Dallas-based Serious Pizza, 2728 W. Seventh St., delivered a “seriously large” 30-inch pie, and folksy downtown pizzeria Picchi Pacchi, 411 W. Seventh St., matched it.
More “Nashville hot” chicken arrived from west and east to spread cayenne throughout Texas, with Helen’s Hot Chicken from Tennessee open at 2812 Horne St. and the Dave’s Hot Chicken chain from Hollywood at 4608 Bryant Irvin Road.
The food isn’t extreme, but robot cats have been enlisted to deliver orders at Japan House, an all-you-can-eat sushi and hibachi restaurant at 7536 Boulevard 26, North Richland Hills.
This story was originally published December 26, 2021 at 5:08 AM.
