Thanksgiving in upheaval: Fort Worth-area restaurants are open, but prices swing wildly
Fort Worth has plenty of new hotels.
But two weeks before Thanksgiving, prices in fine-dining restaurants vary wildly from about $45 to more than $100, and many diners seem to be retreating to old favorites.
The city’s leading Turkey Day buffets, in the Omni Fort Worth and Live! by Loews Arlington hotels, are now mostly booked except in midmorning or midafternoon.
Two popular prime steakhouses — Capital Grille and long-standing neighborhood favorite Silver Fox — also are mostly booked, along with The Keg Steakhouse in Arlington.
There’s some room at Capital Grille’s Dallas location and at corporate cousin Eddie V’s Fort Worth.
Even Ruth’s Chris Steak House, a reasonably priced family favorite at $44 for adults or $17 for kids, is heavily booked in both cities. Same goes for Perry’s Steakhouse & Grille in Grapevine, serving for $49/$19.
Silver Fox beats them both at $42/$18, which may be why it’s heavily booked.
These days, those prices sound cheap.
Top-dollar hotel dining
▪ At Fearing’s in Dallas, the three-course dinner costs $155 per person for adults — $90 with no meat — and $50 for kids.
At least Chef Dean Fearing has the Texas sense to offer real “dressing,” not Northern “stuffing” like some hotels.
▪ The Hotel Crescent Court in Dallas is serving a $155/$65 dinner in its otherwise private Crescent Club on the 17th floor.
The menu includes roast turkey with peppercorn gravy, ancho-rubbed prime rib, salmon, brunch items and traditional sides such as green bean casserole with Tabasco cream and peppercorns, sage cornbread stuffing (!) and praline sweet potatoes.
▪ The buffet at the Hotel Vin, Autograph Collection in Grapevine costs $114 for adults and $54 for kids.
▪ That’s even more than the Gaylord Texan Resort’s $99/$45.
▪ The Omni ballroom buffet costs $74/$44.
(Book it sooner next holiday.)
New or newish hotels
Here’s a look at a few deals that might be available. If you know of another offer, send it to bud@star-telegram.com and I’ll try to update this list online:
▪ Emilia’s, opening Nov. 8 at the new Crescent Fort Worth hotel, has provided almost no publicity information of any kind and also has yet to announce any kind of Thanksgiving special.
But it’s booking Thanksgiving dining reservations online at Resy.com. Call it a mystery.
▪ Musume, the beautiful Asian restaurant in the lobby of the new Sandman hotel downtown, will serve a $35 turkey dinner.
Musume adds its own twist: Japanese milk-bread stuffing, gravy, ginger-cranberry relish and black-sesame pumpkin pie with miso caramel.
▪ Second Bar + Kitchen, a Chef David Bull restaurant in the newly remodeled Crazy Water Hotel in Mineral Wells, is serving a $48 three-course dinner.
The features: a choice of turkey and stuffing, a dry-aged pork chop or salmon.
▪ 97 West Steakhouse at the Hotel Drover, Autograph Collection in the Stockyards has tables for a $75/$35 three-course dinner.
The main course is a choice of prime rib or turkey with sausage-apple stuffing.
Just the way the cowboys made it?
▪ Jellico’s at the Westin Southlake is serving a holiday buffet. But I’m worried, because the website calls it a a “holiday buffer.”
It’s $65/$25, featuring turkey or prime rib.
▪ Il Modo in the Kimpton Harper hotel in Fort Worth is serving a three-course $45 turkey dinner (with spaghetti pomodoro).
A few of many restaurants
Many restaurants will open Thanksgiving.
Bluntly, some of them need your business.
If you have a favorite restaurant, ask whether it’s open Thanksgiving or selling take-home dinners. Dine at home during the Dallas Cowboys game.
If you go out, here are a few of the many restaurants to choose from:
▪ Luby’s on Southeast Loop 820 in Forest Hill will serve its classic $13.99 turkey dinner with cornbread dressing and a dessert.
Some of those fancy hotel chefs could take a lesson on dressing from Luby’s.
▪ Ol’ South Pancake House in Fort Worth is a tradition for many families.
The turkey dinner with pie is $16.99, or $14.99 for seniors. That’s good all day.
▪ For a small-town Texas Thanksgiving, Jake & Dorothy’s Cafe in Stephenville will serve a $20.95 turkey, ham or chicken-fried steak dinner all day.
That’s with pumpkin pie or another Jake & Dorothy’s dessert. It’s the famous restaurant’s 75th Thanksgiving.
▪ Blue Mesa Southwest Grill in Fort Worth will expand its regular Sunday buffet to include turkey. One big plus: It opens at 9 a.m. The price is $35/$10.
▪ Winslow’s Wine Cafe in Fort Worth serves its first Thanksgiving Day buffet, a $95/$29 spread with turkey, prime rib, chorizo-spinach stuffed pork loin and baked ham on the carving station.
Look for salads, pastas and brunch dishes (but no Winslow’s pizza).
▪ Restaurant506 at the Sanford House bed and breakfast near downtown Arlington may have tables available for its $70/$25 three-course dinner featuring turkey, walnut-crusted salmon or a New York strip.
▪ B&B Butchers & Steakhouse in the Shops at Clearfork has early and late tables for its $90/$35 three-course dinner featuring turkey-and-stuffing or prime rib.
▪ Mercury Chophouse in downtown Fort Worth, a local prime steakhouse where Fort Worth police and first responders often dine on holidays, will serve a three-course turkey or ham dinner for $49.95.
▪ Chef Point Cafe in Colleyville will serve an a la carte menu with eight dinner choices, including turkey-and-stuffing or duck a l’orange.
▪ CRÚ Food and Wine Bar in the Shops at Clearfork is a cozy alternative any holiday. The three-course Thanksgiving menu features a choice of turkey, salmon or short rib for $55/$27.50.
Some sports bars also are open Thanksgiving for pro football, and a few offer food.
Remember the Eats Beat rule: If you look at a restaurant’s page or social media and all it brags about is the bar, then that’s probably all there is to brag about.
This story was originally published November 6, 2023 at 5:30 AM.
