Burger News

Burger Vault tempts Keller with thick burgers and spicy fries

Burger & fries from Burger Vault.

Photo courtesy of Burger Vault

A buzzy burger concept from Florida has come to Texas: Called Burger Vault, it's a tiny chain that just opened its first Texas location in Keller at 841 N. Tarrant Pkwy. #101, in a former sushi restaurant at the northeast corner of Rufe Snow Drive, where it's serving burgers, fries, bowls, and shakes.

Their burgers are made from halal beef, which refers to the method in which the cattle are slaughtered, one that focuses on humane treatment of animals, cleanliness, and acknowledging the value of life — similar in concept to kosher food in Judaism. A growing number of halal places have opened around DFW in recent years, and there are also non-halal restaurants who use halal beef, such as Kincaid's.

Burger Vault also eschews pork; their bacon is made from beef.

Their burgers are thick, weighing 5.3 ounces, and come dripping in sauce and cheese. Menu options include:

Vault Burger, topped with beef bacon, pickles, tomato, smoked cheese, vault sauce, caramelized onion, and lettuce
Volcano Burger, with chili volcano sauce, jalapeños, lettuce, tomato, fresh onion, and cheddar cheese
Mushroom Magic Burger, with mushroom sauce, mixed cheese, mushroom, and lettuce

Vault sauce is your standard Russian-dressing-style burger sauce, while Volcano is its spicy cousin.

Burger prices range from $13 to $17, with one exception: the Wagyu Burger for $30, featuring an 8-oz Wagyu patty on a Martin's potato roll, with vault sauce, lettuce, onion, American cheese, and tomato. It comes topped with a sheet of edible gold leaf and is served under a smoke-filled dome — tailor-made for Instagram.

You can substitute a vegan burger patty, and they also have three chicken "burgers" — chicken breast, really, either grilled or fried.

The three bowls are a little trippy, including a "Sydney Bowl" with grilled chicken, Sydney sauce, potato, corn, and Parmesan; and a Magic Mushroom Magic Bowl with grilled chicken, corn, elbow macaroni, mushroom sauce, and Parmesan cheese.

There's a big selection of fries, including regular, spicy — which have emerged as the crowd favorite — plus thick wedge-style fries, curly fries, and sweet potato fries. You can get them loaded with toppings of your choice for $5.

Milkshakes come in seven flavors, including the usual choc-van-straw, plus Oreo, pistachio, and Ferraro Rocher featuring the chocolate hazelnut confection, priced from $7 to $10. There is no soda fountain; beverages come canned.

On opening weekend March 27-29, they offered buy-one-get-one-free specials, which drew a huge crowd, and they've also been diligent about reaching out to the influencer crowd. The space is clean and slightly rustic with brick on the wall and wood-grain vinyl plank flooring. It 's counter service, and the food is served on paper.

Founder Adam Yassen opened the first Burger Vault in Tampa in 2025, followed by a second location in Orlando, which opened in 2026. The Fort Worth area made sense for expansion because he has family here.

"Also, we saw that the area didn't have anything like this," he says.

burgers openings keller

Meet the tastemakers

10 best restaurants in Fort Worth for 2026 are a cut above the rest

Cattlemen's Fort Worth Steak House/Facebook

Cattlemen's Steak House got a major glow up in 2025.

If there's an underlying theme to this year's nominees for the CultureMap Fort Worth Tastemaker Award for Restaurant of the Year, it's opulence. Fine dining destinations dominate the category, with lavish chophouses ruling the roster. Fort Worth loves its steak, but other candidates represent the city's desire for global flavors, including Southeast Asian, Italian, Hawaiian, and even Ethiopian.

One will take home the trophy at the Tastemaker Awards, happening Thursday, April 30 at Social Space. The party will include bites and beverages from nominated restaurants, DJ music, photo ops, and more fun for foodies.

The event will culminate with an awards ceremony that will reveal the winners in all categories, which we've been featuring in our special editorial series. Awards will include Chef of the Year, Bar of the Year, Neighborhood Restaurant of the Year, Rising Star Chef of the Year, Dessert Program of the Year, Coffee Shop of the Year, Best Sandwich, and Best New Restaurant. (Vote for your favorite new restaurant now in our bracket-style tournament — it's the only category where readers determine the winner.)

Limited tickets remain, so get yours now before they sell out. And now, we present the nominees for Fort Worth Restaurant of the Year:

The Blue Room
The Crescent Hotel upgraded Fort Worth’s fine dining scene in 2024 with the opening of this luxurious hidden space tucked inside its signature restaurant, Emilia’s. With just a dozen or so tables, blue-hued furniture, and a Texas-inspired six-course tasting menu, The Blue Room draws a discriminating clientele for special occasion dining. Standout menu items include venison carpaccio al pastor, Gulf catch with gumbo, and boar sausage-stuffed quail.

Bricks and Horses
Bricks and Horses is Bowie House’s signature restaurant, where hotel guests and locals alike gather for modern chophouse cuisine under the direction of chef Antonio Votta, who’s trained at Michelin-starred restaurants in California. The Bowie House lobby has established itself as West Fort Worth’s posh living room, where neighbors convene for cocktails and conversation before or after dinner at luxe steakhouse. Fan-favorite items range from chorizo corn fritters and pepper crusted steak Diane to the Texas broil with chimichurri for two.

Cattlemen's Steak House
The landmark Stockyards steakhouse opened in 1947 as a beacon of new development with its Vegas-style flashing lights and steaks grilled on hot charcoal right in the dining room. But not much changed over the next seven-plus decades until Fort Worth native TV producer-director Taylor Sheridan purchased Cattlemen’s in 2023, completely reinventing the restaurant with a new patio, music stage, multiple bars, updated furnishings, and an underground private club that’s seen in Landman season two. As for the menu, steaks are now sourced from Sheridan’s Four Sixes Ranch, and there are new additions like blue lump crab cakes, steak tartare, and Wagyu meatballs with cheesy polenta. Even longtime local regulars – who may have been skeptical at first – are impressed.

The Chumley House
The wow factor exuded by this sophisticated European-style steakhouse – Duro Hospitality’s first venture outside of Dallas – has not let up since its opening in late 2024. Guests are still raving over The Chumley House’s opulent old-world feel, luxurious intimate setting, and superior service, and even more so about signature dishes like beef Wellington, butter chicken pie, tenderloin stroganoff, and tallow popovers. Dining here is a treat – a hard one to get based on ongoing limited reservation availability.

Pretty pasta at The Chumley House. Duro Hospitality

Clay Pigeon Food & Drink
Since launching Clay Pigeon in 2013, chef Marcus Paslay has established a portfolio of notable Fort Worth restaurants that showcase his scope of work, including Italian, coastal seafood, Southern, and even Tex-Mex. Clay Pigeon is where Paslay and his team get creative with fancy scratch-made dishes like grilled bone marrow with fennel salad, caviar-topped deviled eggs, and prime beef tartare served with aioli and a smoked egg yolk. The cocktails and rustic-chic atmosphere match the upscale cuisine.

Coco Shrimp
What started as one food truck in a north Fort Worth hardware store parking lot became a restaurant phenomenon thanks to a Hawaiian-inspired menu and atmosphere to match. (Think videos of surfing on repeat, just like many eateries in Maui.) Coco Shrimp – now with locations all over Texas following its Near Southside brick-and-mortar flagship – keeps things focused. It serves only butterfly shrimp in five flavors, including butter garlic, spicy, sweet and spicy, lemon herb, and the namesake coconut shrimp. Presented in easy-to-transport cardboard containers, the dish feels like a vacation in a box with its standard sides of butter garlic white rice and fresh green salad. Add pineapple for even more island vibes.

Lonesome Dove Western Bistro
When a young Tim Love opened a fine dining restaurant in the Fort Worth Stockyards in the year 2000, local restaurateurs thought he was crazy. After all, the Stockyards were dead – only busy on the weekends with rowdy late-night crowds – certainly no one looking for inventive wild game dishes like elk, wild boar, kangaroo, and rattlesnake. Fast forward two-and-a-half decades and Lonesome Dove Western Bistro has established a legacy of urban Western cuisine, anchoring a district that’s rapidly grown into one of the country’s hottest travel destinations. Now locals and guests from around the world visit Lonesome Dove for an authentic taste of Texas and a time-honored slice of the Fort Worth Stockyards.

Malai Kitchen
Husband-and-wife team Braden and Yasmin Wages started this modern Viet-Thai restaurant chain in Dallas in 2011, eventually expanding to four locations with two in Tarrant County: Clearfork and Southlake. With pretty interiors and creative dishes, Malai Kitchen is a go-to for a fresh and approachable take on Southeast Asian cuisine. Traditional Vietnamese pho is labeled “Vietnamese noodle soup.” Tom Kha soup is labeled “Thai coconut soup.” Curry dishes, wok-fried rice; entrée salads; and even specialties like branzino, sea bass, and trout round out the menu, along with beer from Malai’s nano-brewery in Southlake.

Margie's Italian Gardens
Chances are, many Fort Worthians had never heard of Margie’s until restaurateur Gigi Howell and her Westland Hospitality Group (JD’s Hamburgers, Pulido’s, West Side Café, Magdalena’s, among others) took ownership and refreshed the classic Italian destination in 2025. Margie’s had previously been open (on and off) since 1953, serving as a far West Fort Worth staple for no-frills pasta dishes and pizzas, with “air conditioning” listed out front as a diner perk. Now Margie’s is a popular spot for date nights and family gatherings, just as the original founder “Mama Meatball” Margie Walters intended.

Smoke'N Ash BBQ
This Ethiopian-influenced barbecue joint in Arlington draws curious diners from all over the country for smoked brisket, pork ribs, and sausage along with Ethiopian staples like house-made spongy flatbread (called injera) and stews like chickpea and lentil. The restaurant expanded in 2023 to allow for more dining room space, online orders, and a new full bar. Their ability to fuse Texas barbecue with East African flavors landed them on the “Recommended” list of the new Michelin Guide Texas in 2024.

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The CultureMap Tastemaker Awards ceremony is sponsored in Fort Worth by Maker's Mark, Lone Star Beer, H-E-B, Saratoga Water, NXT LVL Event, and more to be announced. A portion of the proceeds benefit our nonprofit partner, the Fort Worth Food and Wine Foundation.

tastemaker awards bests tastemakers