Table for One

Where to eat in Fort Worth right now: 8 best restaurants for dining alone

It's just you and your 'cue when you disappear into the crowd at Cooper's.

Cooper's Old Time Pit Bar-B-Que/Facebook

Solo diners may recoil at the thought of eating out in February, the month generally reserved for couples and their Valentine's Day falderal. But just because you're flying solo doesn't mean you have to stay in all month. This month's Where to Eat is a love letter to the unattached diner. Here are eight great spots around town for tables for one.

Café Modern
The tranquil Café Modern, inside The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, is the perfect me-time lunch getaway. It's off the beaten path, usually quiet, and the food is consistently good. Chef Denise Shavandy's winter menu consists of sweet potato gnocchi, manchego chorizo croquettes, and a wild mushroom and gouda grilled cheese sandwich.

Cast Iron
Hotel restaurants are havens for solo diners, as they're often populated with business travelers; you'll slip right in. One of the best hotel restaurants in Fort Worth is the downtown Omni's Cast Iron, open morning, noon, and night. For breakfast, you can order from a menu or load up on pastries, egg dishes, biscuits and gravy, and other items from the huge buffet. Lunch and dinner menus are composed of gussied-up American staples, from chicken-fried wagyu steak to pancetta mac and cheese to venison chili.

Cooper's Old Time Pit BBQ
This Stockyards staple isn't the best 'cue spot in Fort Worth, but it's one of the largest, making it the perfect place to disappear into a crowd. You're pretty much surrounded by people the entire time you're there: You wait in a long line for brisket, beef ribs, sausage, and other 'cue essentials, and you eat with other diners at long, communal tables. Quick tip: Best dish among the sides is the complimentary pinto beans.

Flying Saucer Draught Emporium
Bars are a great place to mask your inability or reluctance to find a plus-one, and luckily Fort Worth has several with better-than-average food. Local restaurateur Shannon Wynne's long-running Flying Saucer is one such spot, with a cool menu that leans toward German food but also includes burgers, salads, and pizzas. The attractive patio area gets so crowded, it's hard to tell who's solo.

My Lan
This east side spot serves some of the best Vietnamese food in the area — no surprise it's always bustling with neighborhood regulars, many of whom dine alone. Arrive early to get a booth. Otherwise, you'll sit at a communal table, where you definitely won't be eating by yourself.

Paris Coffee Shop
Open since 1926, this Fort Worth landmark features an old-school counter, complete with chrome barstools, where single diners can saddle up for breakfast and lunch. Counter seating here also affords ringside views of the café's beloved pies, with their mile-high crowns of meringue.

Pizza Snob
Many pizza joints cater to families, but this TCU-area spot caters to solo diners, as well, offering a seating area with small tables and counter space. The ideal meal here consists of a personal size pizza (the spicy pork and candied jalapeño pie is terrific), a kale salad, and a glass of wine or craft beer; you'll be out less than $20, too.

Sushi Domo
Sushi restaurants are another good bet for parties of one. You can sit at the sushi bar, with your back turned toward the dining room. This underrated sushi restaurant in Arlington has an added bonus for anyone self-conscious about dining alone: super dim lights. The food is very good, too, and includes both traditional rolls and souped-up rolls with sweet and spicy sauces.

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Sandwich News

Where to eat in Fort Worth right now: 5 essential sandwiches to try

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Shredded chicken sandwich from Taste Project.

Summer is (almost) over, we're all headed back to school and back to work. We need lunch plans. We need a great sandwich.

When it comes to sandwiches, Fort Worth has its favorites. If this were that list, it would include classics like the — well, you know who you are: the Rachel at Carshons, the Italian grinder at the Colossal Sandwich Shop in Bedford, the Italian beef at Weinberger's Deli in Grapevine.

But this is not that list.

Instead, this list is five newcomers on the sandwich scene — whether a newly opened restaurant or else a new handheld from a restaurant we know and love.

For this month's Where to Eat, we present five new classic sandwiches in Fort Worth:

Po’ boys at Always Cooking Nola
Always Cooking is a new restaurant inside a Chevron station in River Oaks, at 5001 River Oaks Blvd., serving New Orleans and Cajun-inspired classics: dirty rice, etouffee, crawfish mac and cheese, gumbo, and jambalaya. Po'boys are a big deal here — good news for DFW which has a fondness this crusty Louisiana sandwich. Always Cooking owner Damian Crockem, a New Orleans native, stuffs his generously with choice of soft shell crab, fried shrimp, or fried catfish, and insists on using appropriately crusty French bread he brings in from New Orleans.

Italian beef at Chicago Deep Dish Pizza
Whether you credit Portillo's, the Chicago hot dog chain which entered the Dallas-Fort Worth market in 2023, or else FX series The Bear, this Italian beef sandwich — basically a pot-roast sandwich served on a soft hoagie roll, topped with provolone and pickled peppers — is having its moment. As you can guess by the name, this year-old, indie spot in south Arlington specializes in deep-dish pizza, but owner Ashraf Ghousheh also serves an excellent Italian beef. His is not quite as messy as others: the au ju, which the sandwich is typically dunked in, comes on the side, allowing you to control the napkin factor. The roast beef, sliced wafer thin, is topped spicy giardiniera, and served with a bag of chips - not a bad deal for $10.

Philly cheesesteak at Philly Dave’s
New sandwich shop in far north Fort Worth specializes in its namesake dish: the super cheesy, meaty and bready sandwiches known as Philly cheesesteaks. Opened recently in the old Stevie’s Diner space, the restaurant comes from 70-year-old David McCurtain, who ran a similar restaurant in Watauga, The Burger & Philly Shack, from 2009 to 2022. McCurtain’s experience shows: He builds his cheesesteaks out of shaved rib eye meat and Amoroso's rolls from Philadelphia, and douses them in your choice of cheese: provolone or melted yellow cheese whiz. Other toppings include hot and sweet peppers, grilled onions, bell peppers, and mushrooms. Many say there is no better Philly cheesesteak in town.

Jambon beurre at Swiss Pastry Shop
Long-running bakery on Fort Worth’s west side is famous for its Black Forest cake, pies, and other sweet and savory treats. Owner Hans Peter Muller loves to throw down a special — who could forget his epic burgers — and he recently introduced a sandwich that's startling in its simplicity. Called a jambon-buerre, it's a fancy take on a ham sandwich from France where it's typically made with just three ingredients: baguette, butter, ham. In Muller's version, he tricks it out with two extras — Dijon mustard and Gruyere cheese — and of course he makes the French baguettes in-house. To ramp up the specialness, the sandwich is available on Fridays and Saturdays only.

Eggplant parmesan at Taste Project
Fort Worth’s non-profit, pay-what-you-can restaurant on the Near Southside recently debuted several new dishes, including an eggplant Parmigiana sandwich. They use roasted Japanese eggplant, layered with various Italian cheeses and housemade marinara, and serve it on a toasted ciabatta roll — like a luscious Italian casserole in sandwich form. Even if this were not a fantastic sandwich, not to mention a fantastic vegetarian sandwich, it would be notable if for no other reason than the fact that you do not see eggplant Parmigiana sandwiches around DFW too often. The restaurant also introduced a new barbecue chicken sandwich, featuring shredded chicken and two sauces — Alabama white sauce and peach barbecue sauce — on a toasted bun.

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