Campo Verde, landmark Christmas restaurant in North Texas, reopens with new menu
Campo Verde Mexican Bar & Grill, a landmark restaurant known for its elaborate Christmas decor, has reopened this week as a newer, more upscale restaurant under former luxury hotel chef “Moose” Benhamacht.
For now, tables are available by reservation only beginning June 14.
The restaurant, a 43-year landmark at 2918 W. Pioneer Parkway between Fort Worth and Arlington, has been cleaned throughout. Its signature toy train is again clickety-clacking around the dining room ceiling.
Some of the seven rooms of year-round Christmas decorations have been replaced, although many are still being cleaned or repaired.
Benhamacht and co-owner Liesl Best from Cafe Americana in Arlington have opened a completely new restaurant, offering a full-service menu that features chicken enchiladas, steak flambe, roast chicken, grilled salmon and pork ribs, fajitas and tacos.
The result is more of a finer bar-and-grill — note that’s the new name — with dinners for $20-$40.
The menu includes nachos, queso and tacos, but also a fried chicken Diablo sandwich, a chipotle Caesar salad and desserts such as Biscoff tres leches cake or RumChata liqueur cheesecake.
Benhamacht, a career hotel and resort chef who opened the local Loews hotels, joined with Best to open the successful Cafe Americana in downtown Arlington, one of the city’s first signature chef-driven restaurants.
Benhamacht, a Moroccan native, has led hotel kitchens in resort regions such as Napa Valley, California, and Orlando, Florida.
Campo Verde closed in early January after two years with timeworn decor and kitchen struggles under an owner from Louisiana.
“We have friends who came here in the ‘80s, then their kids came, now their grandkids are coming,” Benhamacht said in a February interview.
“We’re going to clean it up and make it a better experience for Arlington and everybody who loves coming here,” he said.
The brightly decorated rooms, holiday displays and toy trains gave Campo Verde the same kind of fierce, multi-generational following on a smaller scale as Casa Bonita, the legendary Tex-Mex restaurant and theme park in Denver.
The original Campo Verde was built in the 1980s heyday of fajitas-and-margaritas restaurants. The founder, the late James “Smiley” Williams, was a manager for Fort Worth restaurateur Don Bowden at now-gone Dos Gringos before Bowden started the Mercado Juarez Cafes.
Williams sold the restaurant in 2022.
The 40-year chef, Antonio Reyes, left two years ago. He now serves Campo Verde’s original menu at Chente Cafe Brazos River Catfish and Tex-Mex, 10771 Interstate 20 West at the Brazos River bridge west of Weatherford.
This story was originally published June 5, 2025 at 3:30 PM.
