Breakfast News

Hash Kitchen brings over-the-top breakfast to Texas with Fort Worth debut

Hash Kitchen doughnuts

Photo courtesy of Hash Kitchen

A new-to-Texas breakfast chain is coming to Fort Worth: Called Hash Kitchen, it's an Arizona-based concept that will open a location at 3240 Tracewood Way #110 in early May.

UPDATE 5-1-2024: The restaurant will open on May 2.
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Fort Worth is one of six new locations across three states the chain will be opening in the next two years, including three more in Texas: Pearland and Webster opening later in 2024, and San Antonio opening in 2025.

Hash Kitchen was founded in 2015 in Arizona and is known for its over-the-top brunch experience, including a build-your-own Bloody Mary Bar, resulting in those excessive bloody Marys precariously stacked with various foodstuffs.

Other signatures include their disco-ball decor theme, plus DJs spinning on site. Plus:

hash available in eight options: with brisket, pork chop, carnitas, ham, birria, a "stack" hash with eggs & chorizo-mashed potatoes on tortillas, and a "hangover" hash with braised beef, jalapeño cornbread & potato hash, poached eggs & onion rings
doughnuts, in decadent and unusual flavors such as cannoli

The menu features playful cocktails and dishes such as fried chicken & waffle, birria bao buns, pineapple upside down pancakes, souffle pancakes, benedicts, breakfast potato tacos with eggs & avocado, frittatas, oatmeal, and an "Ah-sigh-ee" bowl, so thoughtful to have the pronunciation of acai spelled out.

There's also a Nashville hot chicken sandwich and a burger served on a croissant.

Hash Kitchen is part of The Maggiore Group, a restaurant company from husband-and-wife Joey and Cristina Maggiore, who've also created concepts such as The Sicilian Butcher, The Sicilian Baker, and The Mexicano. In 2021, they partnered with Utah-based Savory Fund, which owns Swig, Via 313, Pincho, and Mo’ Bettahs, to expand the brand into neighboring states.

They currently have seven locations: six in Arizona, and one in Utah which they opened in 2023.

Savory Fund co-founder Andrew K. Smith calls it a "one-of-a-kind dining experience."

Maggiore says that “it's amazing to have a concept and menu that I created become a household name. Now everyone will see what Hash Hash Baby is all about."

Maggiore comes from a restaurant background: His father was Tomaso Maggiore, founder of Tomaso’s Italian Restaurant in Arizona. Since Hash Kitchen debuted, Joey and Cristina have conceptualized The Sicilian Butcher, The Sicilian Baker, The Mexicano - which has experiential food like a 3-foot quesadilla - and their most recent creation, a fine-dining Italian concept called The Rosticceria.

breakfast brunch 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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