Coronavirus News

Bars in Fort Worth and across Tarrant County get the OK to reopen

Bars are back in business, at least halfway.

Photo courtesy of Texas Live!

After a grueling seven-month shutdown, bars in Fort Worth are now allowed to reopen, thanks to a decree from Tarrant County Judge Glen Whitley.

Bars in Fort Worth and across Tarrant County will be able to reopen at 50 percent capacity. The first day they can open is October 14, per state order.

At a press conference on October 12, the judge said he'd consulted with local politicians and business owners and concluded that Tarrant County could handle a reopening.

"I talked to mayors in the cities around Tarrant County, I talked to bar owners and citizens and other folks, and I feel comfortable right now that we can do this and still be safe," Whitley said.

One key factor in his decision was occupancy at hospitals.

"We have said from the very beginning that the focus is on making sure our hospitals remain open," Whitley said. "I've had conversations with hospital CEOs and they all feel comfortable with the decision I've made."

Whitley said that if the number of patients that are positive for COVID-19 exceeds 15 percent of hospital capacity, then bars would have to shut back down.

He emphasized that Tarrant County residents would be required to remain vigilant, continue to wear masks, and social distance, and bars must follow state guidelines or risk being shut down again.

"If flagrant violations of the occupancy requirements are ignored or COVID cases make up more than 15 percent of our Tarrant County hospital capacity, I won't hesitate to close bars," Whitley said.

Some bars over the weekend of October 10-11 allegedly reopened illegally, and Whitley said those scenarios were under investigation.

"I assure you I am working on that," he said. "We have questions about some videos we've seen from the weekend, and we've had conversations with TABC. It's possible their license will be suspended today or tomorrow."

Whitley's announcement follows the October 7 order by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who gave permission for bars to reopen across the state, but left the ultimate decision to individual counties. Collin County opted to reopened bars; Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins opted against.

"There's not an obvious right or wrong," Whitley said. "We have to balance public health and mental health and the financial consequences of being closed all this time. We've wanted to reopen businesses as quickly as we could. It was a tough decision, especially as we saw some bars who reopened as restaurants. A lot of bars have done what we've asked them to do and stayed closed and not tried to fit through a loophole. The only ones getting penalized are those who really tried to do what we asked them to do."

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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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