by | October 21, 2026 · 6:14 pm

That Sausage Kolache You Grab in West Isn’t a Kolache

Every Dallasite who has driven I-35 to Austin knows the ritual. About 75 miles south of downtown, you pull off in West, stand in line, and walk out with a box of sausage kolaches for the road. Somewhere, though, a Texas Czech grandmother is shaking her head. What you bought is a klobasnek.

A kolache is sweet. The name comes from the Czech kola, for wheels or rounds, and it describes a round of soft yeast dough with a dimple of fruit, sweet cheese or poppy seed in the middle. Czech immigrants brought it to Central Texas in the 1800s.

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by | October 21, 2026 · 1:24 pm

Cattlemen’s Steak House Has Been Fort Worth’s Chicken Fried Steak Benchmark Since 1947

Jesse Roach had already lived about three careers before he ever sold a steak. He grew up in Mount Pleasant, studied pharmacy in Little Rock and ran a drugstore in Austin. Then he passed the bar, practiced law and went to the Texas House for two terms representing Hunt County. When he landed in Fort Worth in the 1940s, he was selling insurance to truckers.

In 1947 he and his wife, Mozelle, opened a restaurant in the same North Main Street building as the insurance office. They named it Cattlemen’s. Their early newspaper ads pushed “refrigerated air,” Sunday “Dollar Dinners” and calf and lamb fries, which tells you a fair amount about what Fort Worth wanted after the war.

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by | October 21, 2026 · 12:58 pm

Stowe, Vermont: A Texan’s Guide to New England’s Postcard Ski Town

The first thing you notice coming into Stowe is the church. A tall white spire stands over Main Street, and on a clear day Mount Mansfield, the highest peak in Vermont, fills the sky beyond it like somebody arranged the scene for a calendar. Locals have seen that view about a million times. Visitors still pull over to photograph it.

Stowe has been selling that picture for a long time, and it has gotten very good at it. It is a real town with a real ski mountain, a 19th-century village, a family from The Sound of Music and one of the most hunted-down beers in America. It is also expensive, busy in high season and closed for business in more places than you would expect during the shoulder months. Go in knowing both halves, and it is a wonderful place to spend a few days.

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by | October 21, 2026 · 11:46 am

The Statler at 70: History, Hidden Bars and What to Order at Every Spot Inside

Dallas threw the Statler Hilton a four-day party when it opened on Commerce Street in 1956. The city had not seen a major new hotel downtown in 30 years, and this one cost $16 million, ranked as the largest hotel in the Southwest and had a ballroom that held 2,200 people. It also turned out to be the last hotel the Statler chain ever built. Hilton had just bought the company.

The building was a show-off from day one. A cantilevered concrete slab let it climb higher than anyone expected, and the skin was glass and porcelain panels in that unmistakable midcentury teal. Historic Hotels of America credits it as the first building anywhere with elevator music and the first hotel with a 21-inch Westinghouse television in every room. There was a heliport on the roof, too, for guests who preferred to skip traffic from the airport.

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by | October 21, 2026 · 11:22 am

What Is an Arepa? A Dallas Guide to Venezuela’s Favorite Corn Cake

Ask a Venezuelan what they miss most about home, and the answer usually comes back fast. It is rarely a fancy dish. It is the arepa, the round, griddled corn cake that shows up at breakfast, lunch, after midnight and at every hour in between.

An arepa is corn flour, water and salt, patted into a disk about the size of a coaster and cooked on a flat griddle until the outside turns crisp. The inside stays soft and steamy. Split it open like an English muffin and stuff it with whatever the day calls for.

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by | October 21, 2026 · 8:07 am

Chef Yia Medina’s First Fall Menu at The Vandy Brings Lobster Thermidor and a 2-Pound Fried Chicken

A portrait of Tom Vandergriff greets you at the door of The Vandy, and it belongs there. The longtime Arlington mayor spent his career insisting the city would be the center of North Texas, then went out and landed the ballclub and the amusement parks to back it up. The restaurant that bears his name now sits a short walk from both stadiums, on the ground floor of the rebuilt Caravan Court at 205 N. Collins St.

The hotel opened in June on the site of the old Caravan Motor Hotel, a 1961 motor court whose sign made it through the rebuild intact. Chef Yimara “Yia” Medina had been on the job only a matter of days when the doors opened, cooking from a starter menu handed to her by the hotel group. Fall is the first time the menu reads like hers.

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by | October 20, 2026 · 3:31 pm

The DFW Restaurant Bucket List: 16 Places to Eat Before the Year Is Out

Every city has its short list. These are the places locals take visiting relatives to, the reservations people set alarms for, and the lines that are still worth the wait years after the buzz should have faded.

This one covers all of Dallas-Fort Worth and every budget. There’s an omakase counter with only a handful of seats, a fried chicken house where the whole menu fits in one breath, a taqueria where the tacos are still a bargain, and a dining room at the Ritz-Carlton that has been part of the Dallas story for nearly two decades. Several of these places were honored again in the 2026 Michelin Guide Texas earlier this month. A few have never needed anybody’s guide.

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by | October 20, 2026 · 2:44 pm

Juggernaut Hillside Cabernet Sauvignon Review: Big California Cab for a Weeknight Price

The lion gets you first. It roars across the label in black and turquoise, all Art Deco lines, and the bottle underneath is heavier and broader than most reds on the shelf. Juggernaut Hillside Cabernet Sauvignon sits in grocery aisles across Texas dressed like a wine that costs twice as much. For the most part, the wine lives up to the outfit.

Juggernaut is made by Bogle Family Vineyards, the family winery in Clarksburg, California, a little south of Sacramento in the Delta. Bogle has spent more than 50 years building a reputation on wines that taste better than their price tags suggest, and the Cabernet was Juggernaut’s first release.

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