Holiday dining

Cheers to the best Fort Worth restaurants for brunch on New Year's Day 2024

New Year's brunch, champagne brunch, coupe

A hearty toast to welcome 2024.

Photo by Oskar Kadaksoo on Unsplash

New Year’s Day falls on a Monday this year, and some restaurants are opening up for brunch service to bring in 2024. It’s also National Bloody Mary Day, the perfect excuse to kick off the year with a cocktail – or cure a hangover from the night before. Here are some of Fort Worth’s best spots for New Year’s Day brunch. (Note: This list will grow as more are announced.) Still need New Year's Eve dining plans? That list is here.

B&B Butchers & Restaurant
The Shops at Clearfork steakhouse will serve its annual “New Year’s Day Hangover Cure Brunch,” including Wagyu and eggs, crab cake Benedict, and a black-eyed peas and greens special. There’ll also be brunch cocktails and live music by Big Mike. Brunch service will run from 11 am-3 pm. Reservations are recommended.

Bohemian Bull
The Grapevine destination for pub food and game-watching will host a New Year’s Day brunch and pajama party. Keep the cozy pjs on for $10 mimosa carafes and $8 all-you-can-eat pancakes. There’ll also be DJ music. The party starts at 9 am and runs until 2 pm.

Chef Point Bar & Restaurant
Brunch will be served all day, 11 am-7 pm, at the Colleyville destination for elevated comfort food. Don’t miss the black-eyed pea bloody Mary special or go big with Chef Point’s Bloody Best double sized bloody Mary garnished with fried chicken, grilled shrimp, a slider, waffle fries, and more.

Chef Point Cafe Go big in 2024 with Chef Point's "Bloody Best." Facebook/Chef Point Restaurant & Bar

El Chingon
The West 7th-area Mexican restaurant and bar lets revelers sleep in and starts celebrating New Year’s Day at 3 pm with "La Cruda Mondays." Specially priced signature dishes and drinks will include $8 tortas served with loaded garlic fries; $4 sopa Azteca; and $3 micheladas and house margaritas. Festivities include dancing to DJs Shadowman and Alex P; party packages are available.

Funky Picnic Brewery & Café
The South Main Village restaurant and brewery will debut a new brunch menu on New Year’s Day, including new brunch cocktails. (A sneak peek of the menu revealed waffles topped with bananas and bacon, below.) Brunch will be served from 11 am-3 pm. Reservations can be made here.

Funky Picnic brunch, waffles Funky Picnic is unveiling new brunch menu items on New Year's Day.Facebook/Funky Picnic

HG Sply Co.
Brunch will include cranberry pecan muffins, veggie hash, protein pancakes, sausage breakfast tacos, bacon breakfast on a bun, Julio’s bloody Mary, mimosas, and espresso martini. Reservations for the Fort Worth-WestBend location can be booked here.

Hot Box Biscuit Club
Normally closed on Mondays, Hot Box Biscuit Club will open for a New Year’s Day pop-up with guest chef Kevin Martinez of Tokyo Café. Longtime Hot Box fans might remember the biscuit institution’s coveted brunch pop-ups of years past, and this will be similar with limited seating and a surprise set menu. Tickets are $50 and include a welcome cocktail. (The bar will be open for additional purchases.) The party starts at 10:30 am.

Malai Kitchen
Vietnamese-Thai restaurant with locations in Fort Worth and Southlake will be open for brunch with limited-edition dishes including Lao quail crostini, Thai crab cakes, Vietnamese 5-spice pork belly, “drunken” filet mignon, night market cotton candy, and Thai tea panna cotta. Plus cocktail specials passion fruit fizz, apricot old fashioned, and Singapore sling for two; 11 am-2 pm.

Pinstripes
The Shops at Clearfork bowling and bocce ball destination will host its popular brunch buffet on New Year’s Day from 9 am-2 pm. Expect made-to-order omelets, a waffle station, carving station, salads, breakfast dishes, chef’s specialty entrees, and more. The buffet is $27 for adults and $13 for kids 6-12.

Pinstripes Fort Worth Bowling Lanes Come for brunch, stay for bowling at Pinstripes. Photo courtesy of Pinstripes

Razzoo’s Cajun Café
The cure for a holiday hangover is available at Razzoo’s. Visit for $5 Moonshine Marys and $5 mimosas all day long. Save room for black-eyed peas, a New Year’s Day tradition to ensure good luck and prosperity for 2024.

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Teresa Gubbins contributed to this report.

holidays newyearsdaybrunch brunch

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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