Pub News

Ireland native opens proper Irish pub in Fort Worth's West 7th district

Their fish and chips are a trademark.

Courtesy photo

There's a new bar coming to Fort Worth that will fill a mostly unfilled niche: the Irish pub. The bar is called Trinity College Irish Pub, and it will open in the West 7th corridor at 910 Currie St., formerly home to Tortaco, the Mexican taco and bowls concept which closed in 2018.

Trinity College comes from Alan Kearney, a native of Dublin, Ireland who moved to the Dallas-Fort Worth area in 2011. He's owned bars in Dublin and Dallas, including Crafty Irishman Pub in downtown Dallas, and has a clear sense of how a true Irish pub should feel.

"For me, an Irish pub is about proper food, proper service," he says. "Some Irish pubs are like an Irish pub fantasy, but I take a more modern approach of a cosmopolitan bar you might find in Dublin. I love the warm wood feel of bars in Ireland, but we also embrace the sports bar aspect. We believe in good conversation — but if there's a good fight or a good game on, we like to show it."

"It's also there in the training of our staff, that they're warm and friendly, that we serve proper pints of Guinness correctly and at the right temperature, and that we have knowledge of hundreds of Irish whiskeys and Scotches," he says.

Kearney came to Dallas because of his wife Leigh. She works for Delta Airlines and is among the small 8 percent of female pilots. They met while she was visiting Dublin, and he followed her back to Texas.

"She's the reason I'm here," he says. "I still remember that one of the first places she took me was Billy Bob's, and it was such an amazing Texas moment. We danced, and I was so impressed that they host big-name performers you'd hear about in Ireland."

At Trinity College, they'll have live music by traditional and local bands, as well as a menu of authentic Irish fare.

"We make all our food and use local vendors," he says. "Many of our recipes are traditional Irish dishes, but sometimes with a modern twist. We have a modern take on corned beef and cabbage that's stacked. We do shepherd's pie, Irish stew, and our fish and chips."

He's hoping to build a splendid patio, and targets late spring for his opening date, depending on city permits and other variables.

He'll do late-night hours both for the night owls and for the student population at nearby TCU, which helped inspire the bar's name.

"And Trinity is for the Trinity River, plus the reference to Trinity College in Dublin, it clicked in so many ways," he says.

openings

Chef News

Fort Worth's Will Rogers Memorial Center welcomes bright new chef

FortWorthtx.gov

Will Rogers Memorial Center

There's a new chef in town: Waylon Cornelius, named executive chef of catering and concessions for Craft Culinary Concepts, the food and beverage provider at Will Rogers Memorial Center.

Will Rogers Memorial Center is the 120-acre entertainment complex anchoring Fort Worth’s Cultural District, owned and operated by the City of Fort Worth. Cornelius will oversee menus for trade shows and other events at the center which bring in more than 2 million visitors a year.

Craft Culinary Concepts is headquartered in Glendale, Arizona, and manages food and beverage programs for entertainment, sports and cultural facilities.

Chef Waylon Corneliusfortworthtx.gov

According to a release, Cornelius joined the team this summer and is already shifting the expectations of guests from a typical “BBQ and beans” menu to a bill of fare satisfying every kind of palate.

“We always have fajitas ready to go, but we also make a beautiful Beef Wellington or baked salmon with a pink salt crust,” Cornelius says in a statement.

For consumer trade shows, Craft and its partners Caribou and Taco Heads offer more choices for the thousands of guests who attend events at WRMC annually.

“Some of our equestrian guests are away from home and here for several days, and they need more than popcorn and hot dogs,” Cornelius says. “Our concessions offer biscuits and gravy, burritos made in-house, strawberry salad, fruit and yogurt cups.”

A native of Mansfield, Cornelius grew up helping in a farm-to-table kitchen. He was raised on a farm with his mother, grandmother, and grandfather -- a Vietnam veteran who enjoyed vegetable gardens and raising hogs and chickens. He studied computer science after high school and holds an associate's degree in Cultural Resource Management and Policy Analysis from Tarrant County College.

He's a 2003 graduate of AIMS Academy of Culinary Arts in Dallas where he was mentored by a number of great chefs. While training as assistant executive sous chef at the AAA four-diamond Grand Hyatt DFW, he worked with Executive Chef Sutti Sripolpa, chef Eric Dreyer (who went on to be Oprah Winfrey’s personal chef), and Chef Jean-Claude Plihon, under whom he honed his French cooking skills.

As executive sous chef at the opening of Perry’s Steakhouse and Grille in Southlake, Cornelius gained expertise with volume. While at HG Sply Co., he learned about gluten-free items and other food allergies.

HG Sply is also where he crossed paths with Chef James R. Schell III, Craft’s general manager at WRMC, who recruited Cornelius to the complex.

"James said he needed someone who can hit moving targets, push the culinary team to be more avant-garde and use locally sourced, seasonal ingredients, so here I am," Cornelius says. "Culinary is a small world."

“I want people to say, ‘When we were in Fort Worth, you won’t believe what we got at Will Rogers!’” Schell says. “Even the celebrities who perform [in the auditorium] are surprised. When Chicago played here recently and we served dinner backstage, they said they felt treated like the Rolling Stones.”

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