Where to drink right now

Where to drink in Fort Worth: 5 top happy hours to toast school's return

School is back in session for most local students this week, and parents deserve a toast. Whether they've been shuttling the kids between camps and sitters all summer or keeping them busy (and sane) while staying at home, a grownup happy hour is in order. These five Fort Worth bars are well-suited for catching up with parent-friends you might not have seen since last school year. So let the spouse, sitter, or grandparents handle after-school pick-up, and plan a celebratory sip session to toast the return of routine.

Hudson House
For some parents, sweet dreams are made of these: East Coast oysters and ice-cold martinis. Both are on happy hour, 3-6 pm Monday-Friday, at Hudson House (4600 Dexter Ave.), a Dallas-based concept that opened prominently on the bricks near Camp Bowie Blvd. late last year. With its polished yet approachable atmosphere and a menu that ranges from cheeseburgers to sushi, the East Coast-inspired concept draws lots of regulars from ladies to lunch to guys who golf. Bonus: Dressy attire or errand-running athleisure are both just fine here. Happy hour is in the bar only and includes half-off martinis (served in famously frozen glassware), bellinis, and wines by the glass along with $3 oysters on the half shell and $10 cheeseburgers.

CRU Food & Wine Bar
The Shops at Clearfork wine bar (5188 Marathon Ave.) sits amid the toniest boutiques in Fort Worth – a double plus for parents looking to treat themselves with some retail therapy, too. Happy hour runs 3-5:30 pm Monday-Friday (at the bar and on the patio) and includes $3 off flights and wines by the glass, $9 sommelier picks by the glass, and menu specials like Ahi tuna tartare for $12 and goat cheese beignets for $11. But there’s more. On Mondays, select any bottle of wine and get a free pizza, and on Thursdays all bottles of champagne are half-off from 4 pm-close. Pinkies up!

Rio Mambo
How to put parents in a good mood: feed them chips, queso, and a marg. Rio Mambo, with its locations in Fort Worth, Colleyville, and Burleson, serves some of the most potently popular margaritas in town. Frozen varieties include the Mango Rita, peach-infused Mambellini, and the fruity Frozen Beach. Find all blended and house margaritas for $1 off during happy hour, 3-7 pm Monday-Friday. Even more, house margs are only $4.99 and blended margs are $6.99 all day on Thursdays. Pair with picadillo beef or chorizo queso and let the adult conversations begin.

Quince
A visit here feels like a vacation thanks to Quince’s San Miguel de Allende origin, with its marble floors and bar tops, décor in hues of bright blue, and open-air setting along the Trinity River. The restaurant and bar (1701 River Run) specializes in a worldly variety of sushi, seafood dishes, steaks, and cocktails. Happy hour is 3-5:30 pm Monday-Friday and features half-off the “usuals,” which encompass house margaritas, Ranch H2O, beers on tap, wines by the glass, and all frozen cocktails. The latter category features more sophisticated versions of typical frozen offerings, like the mint and lemon-kissed Frose; frozen Carajillo; and just in time for college football season, the Horned Frog Mojito blended with vodka and aged rum. Also on happy hour are $2.50 oysters on the half shell along with appetizers (don’t miss the rock shrimp tempura), and sushi rolls for 25 percent off.

Goat & Vine
Breaking the snakebitten corner space curse in Montgomery Plaza (2600 W. 7^th St.) is this Chicago-based Italian import, which opened early in 2023 and draws girl groups for its bottomless brunch “packages” and Instagram-friendly spaces. The restaurant also touts itself as a winery, referring to its custom-bottled varietals made from California grapes and labeled exclusively for Goat & Vine. Most of those wines (the ones with white or black labels) are half-price by the bottle and glass, 4-6 pm Monday- Friday. Additionally, all signature cocktails – like the Espresso Martini and Red Wine Side Car – are $10. Nibble on appetizer specials like $7 bruschetta, $6 zucchini chips with truffle aioli, and $14 charcuterie boards.

Quince Riverside FW/Facebook

Cheers to the return of school (and parent sanity) at Quince.

cocktails fort worth bars goat vine happy hour specials hudson house margarita deals parent happy hour quince rio mambo school return celebration signature cocktails where-drink

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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Where to drink right now

Where to drink in Fort Worth: 5 top happy hours to toast school's return

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