Fort Worth has kept a good thing mostly to itself for seven years. That ends this August, when the eighth annual Fort Worth Burger Week runs August 17 through 23 and Dallas finally gets a Burger Week of its own, held the same week, with the same beautifully simple premise: around 30 restaurants per city, each serving a specialty burger for $8.
The event comes from Greg Heitzman, founder of What’s Up Fort Worth, who launched the original in 2019 as a way to push traffic to local restaurants during the sleepy last stretch of summer. It worked well enough that the same kitchens keep coming back, and now his What’s Up Dallas operation is producing the inaugural Dallas edition. The charity mechanics are unusually clean: restaurants pay a fee to participate, and every dollar of those fees goes to the food banks, with the Fort Worth event supporting the Tarrant Area Food Bank and Dallas proceeds going to the North Texas Food Bank.
The Fort Worth lineup reads like a roll call of the city’s burger institutions, with both locations of Fred’s Texas Café, Michael’s Cuisine, Rogers Roundhouse, Tommy’s Hamburgers, Shaw’s Patio Bar & Grill, and Fuego Burger all returning. Early Dallas confirmations include Hunky’s in both Oak Lawn and Bishop Arts, Chop House Burger, Ron’s and The Hub Sports Bar in Addison, and Bowlounge, with the full list building at DFWBurgerWeek.com.
Both cities kick off a day early, on Saturday, August 16 at 11 a.m., with parties at Heim BBQ in each town, on White Settlement Road in Fort Worth and West Mockingbird Lane in Dallas. Expect live music, a Burger Week lunch special, and beer specials, and the early birds do well here: the first 50 people at each location take home a Burger Week backpack loaded with the 2026 t-shirt, koozies, concert tickets, and sponsor goodies, while the first 50 to buy a pint get the commemorative Burger Week glass.
Throughout the week, social media giveaways hand out t-shirts, pint glasses, and gift cards, building toward a grand prize of a backyard hamburger party for 30, catered by The Hamburger Man. “Hunger doesn’t take a vacation,” said Julie Butner, president and CEO of the Tarrant Area Food Bank, and that is the real point under all the fun: summer is the hardest season for families facing hunger, and this is a painless way to help while eating very well for eight dollars.
