This week's hot headlines

Restaurant & bar's big move tops this week's 5 hottest Fort Worth headlines

Landmark Bar and Kitchen has reopened in north Fort Worth.

Landmark

Editor's note: A lot happened this week, so here's your chance to get caught up. Read on for the week's most popular headlines. Looking for the best things to do this weekend? Find that list here.

1. Fort Worth neighborhood favorite Landmark Bar & Kitchen finds new home. A popular Fort Worth bar and restaurant has found a new home: Landmark Bar & Kitchen, the neighborhood restaurant and bar that survived nearly a decade in the West 7th district, has relocated to the Western Center, at 6621 Fossil Bluff Dr., with HDTVs, cold beer, food, arcade, and backyard games.

2. Fort Worth's best restaurants and chefs crowned at 2024 Tastemaker Awards. The 2024 CultureMap Tastemaker Awardswere a grand celebration of Fort Worth's culinary all-stars - the restaurants, bars, and chefs who've made the biggest impact on the local dining scene in the past year. After months of buildup, the winners finally were crowned at an awards ceremony and signature tasting event on Thursday, May 2.

3. This roundup of Fort Worth restaurant news has both bitter and sweet. Things are bustling at Fort Worth restaurants, with optimistic new menus for spring, limited-edition specials, and fancy desserts. There's also been a weird round of closures in the past few weeks, from an upscale bakery to a sweet little diner. Here's what's happening in Fort Worth restaurant news.

4. 2 Dallas-Fort Worth cities make the list of most diverse places in U.S. Living in a multicultural city comes with many benefits. Diverse communities bring new perspectives, greater versatility, and economic boosts, to name a few. And according to a new study by WalletHub, Arlington and Dallas are among the most diverse cities in the nation.

5. 9 luxe new hotel spas offer decadent escapes in Texas’ biggest cities.Chic luxury hotels have been opening at a dizzying pace in Texas' biggest cities in the last year, including a couple in Fort Worth. Here are the nine hottest new spas at luxury hotels around Texas, all of which have opened (or reopened) in about the last 18 months. Bonus that a few new local hotels have must-visit bars, too.

Party Is Over

Party City chain to close all stores including 9 in Fort Worth

Party City

A chain of stores where the party is always going on is closing down: Party City will close all of its stores and has initiated layoffs, effective immediately. According to CNN, CEO Barry Litwin told corporate employees that Party City has to “commence a winddown process immediately,” and that Friday would be their last day of work for the company.

However, the actual store locations, including those around North Texas, will be open until February 28.

Founded in 1986 and headquartered in Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey, Party City is largest party goods retailer in the U.S. — the go-to destination for every type of celebration, with more than 700 company-owned and franchise store locations across North America selling home decor, candles, balloons, wrapping paper, tableware, bulk candy, baking supplies, and more.

A typical Party City store ranges in size from 10,000 to 12,000 square feet and carries approximately 30,000 items. Halloween accounts for as much as one-quarter of yearly sales, but they celebrate all seasonal holidays, from New Year's Eve to the Fourth of July to Father's Day to Super Bowl Sunday, and offer a wide array of merchandise for birthday parties, bar mitzvahs, wedding and bridal showers, and baby showers.

Party and costume merchandise has become more competitive in recent years, with companies like the budget-focused Spirit Halloween expanding beyond its Halloween pop-ups into “Spirit Christmas” stores, as well as competition from Amazon and other online retailers.

In 2023, the chain filed for bankruptcy, then emerged with a plan that included transitioning into a privately held company and canceling nearly $1 billion in debt. At that time, there were approximately 800 U.S. stores.

There are 64 stores in Texas, with 9 in the Fort Worth area, as follows:

Arlington
Burleson
Denton
Euless
Fort Worth
Hurst
Lake Worth
Mansfield
Watauga

Dallas-Fort Worth stores have already started sales between 5 and 50 percent off.

holidays closings