Noted Texas chef Stephan Pyles leaving steakhouse west of Fort Worth
Dallas-based celebrity chef Stephan Pyles has left the Seeker restaurant in Stephenville to finish writing a memoir, according to his Facebook post.
Pyles, a pioneer of Southwestern cuisine, signed on last year to help open the Seeker in the Interstate Inn, 809 East Road, a handsomely restored and retro 1960s-era motor hotel.
The Seeker remains open. Its menu is keeping many of Pyles’ dishes, featuring steaks, honey-fried chicken in jalapeno gravy, chicken-fried steak in chorizo gravy and other signatures from Pyles’ Baby Routh, Star Canyon and Stampede 66 restaurants.
The Inn and the Seeker opened in early 2025.
The Inn, built in the 1960s as a Caravan Interstate Inn, was restored to its roadside-Americana glory as a boutique hotel for Stephenville, the “Cowboy Capital of the World.”
Reviews for the Seeker are exceptional.
Customers give it 4.7 stars on Yelp.com, praising the short rib, shrimp ceviche and cocktails.
Google readers also score it at 4.7, praising the brunch and margaritas.
Pyles wrote on Facebook that his time at the Seeker was a meaningful chapter but that “it’s time for me to turn the page.”
His memoir covers his life in food and his time as an architect of the 1980s American food movement, he wrote: “Twenty‑six restaurants and several trips around the world later, I’m finally ready to tell the whole story.”
Pyles is the second award-winning chef to depart from a small-town hotel west of Fort Worth.
Austin chef David Bull opened Second Bar + Kitchen at the Crazy Water Hotel in Mineral Wells before that hotel changed management. That restaurant is now Oak & Third, by contest-winning Fort Worth chef Stefon Rishel.
This story was originally published January 7, 2026 at 4:14 AM.
