FW Food Events, A List

These are the 7 best food and drink events in Fort Worth this week

Downtown Grapevine has a new wine bar.

OG Cellars Winery on Main/Facebook

Bourbon, beer, and wine are on the menu of food events in Fort Worth this week, as October officially arrives. Oktoberfest events are still happening, and there's a rare opportunity to snag tickets (hurry!) to a popular outdoor firepit cooking class.

Thursday, October 3

Wine and Jazz
Greater Keller Chamber of Commerce is hosting its first Wine and Jazz event, featuring food samplings from area restaurants including Outpost 36 BBQ, Horizon 76 grill, DeVivo Bros., Firebirds, FnG Eats, Cole's Custom Cheesecakes, Nothing Bundt Cakes, and wine from Two Brothers winery. Guests will enjoy a mix of music, whiskey auction, live auction, and wine pull. It takes place at Keller Town Hall, from 5:30-9 pm. Tickets are $85.

Friday, October 4

Bourbon & Bones Dinner at Cowboys Golf Club
To be held in the Ring of Honor Kitchen & Bar at Cowboys Golf Club in Grapevine, this five-course bourbon pairing dinner will feature Knob Creek spirits. Menu highlights include bone marrow with gremolata, Texas quail and hoppin’ John salad, and tomahawk ribeye with creamed shishito peppers. Each course will come with a different Knob Creek cocktail. Reservations are $99 plus tax and gratuity, and dinner begins at 6:30 pm.

'90s Party at Hoppin'
New pour-your-own beer spot in Fort Worth’s Foundry District is throwing it back '90s style with a '90s party featuring a DJ spinning '90s hits, '90s shows on the TVs, '90s-themed cocktails and shots, a '90s costume contest, '90s treats and party favors, and pizza from Maple Pizza. Hooray for the '90s! It'll take place from 9 pm-2 am. You can make a reservation here, but entry is free.

Saturday, October 5

Firepit Cooking Class at Log Cabin Village
Culinary classes at this outdoor living history museum always sell out. Snag tickets by October 3 (the deadline for registration) and learn the basics of firepit cooking, 19th century style. The hands-on class will let participants prepare a meal over fire to share with classmates. Tickets are $30 and the class will run from 9:30 am–12:30 pm. Kids 10 and older are welcome, but only two per paying adult.

OG Cellars Grapevine Grand Opening
The Sunset, Texas-based winery has opened a satellite wine bar at 909 S. Main St. in historic downtown Grapevine. Enjoy amazing, award-winning, 100 percent Texas wines produced grape-to-bottle at their winery: reds, whites, dry, and sweet. Texas singer/songwriter James Cook will play from 2-5pm, and A Crowd of Three will play from 7–10 pm. Doors open at 12 pm.

BTX Brewfest
Burleson’s annual beer festival will feature more than a dozen breweries including Revolver Brewing, Fort Brewery, Texas Ale Project, and Four Corners Brewing. Heim Barbecue will be among the food trucks on site, as well as Godley’s Del Norte Tacos. Tickets start at $25 for general admission with 12 beer tasting tickets ($10 admission for no tickets) and go up to $55 for VIP tickets, which includes admission one hour early plus swag bag, shirt, and festival glass. Prices go up by $5 on the day of the event, which will run from 3–9 pm (2 pm for VIP).

Oktoberfest at Rusty Nickel IceHouse
Expansive indoor-outdoor sports bar and music venue will host its annual Oktoberfest celebration that comes with special accommodations for large groups: Parties of 6 or 8 can book a table in advance for $30 per person, and each guest gets a German plate of brat, sauerkraut, and potato salad and a stein glass along with two beer buckets for the table with choice of Alstadt’s or Shiner. Activities include stein hoisting, dachshund races, and bratwurst eating contests. Festivities will run from 3–10 pm.

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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