DFW Restaurant Week has been running long enough to outlast most of the restaurants that participated in its first year, and this August it hits a real milestone: 30 years, making it the second-longest-running restaurant week campaign in the country. The main event runs August 10 through September 7, with a Preview Weekend August 6 through 9 for anyone who doesn’t want to wait for the official kickoff. Reservation Day landed July 16, which means the full list of participating restaurants, expected to run past 160 across Dallas, Tarrant, Collin, and Denton counties, is already public and booking is open now through DFWRestaurantWeek.com.
The pricing structure stays consistent across most participants. Three-course dinners run $49 or $59 depending on the restaurant, two-course lunches and weekend brunches run $29, and a smaller group of restaurants are offering $99 Signature Experience dinners for anyone who wants a longer, more ambitious menu than the standard prix fixe. Every one of those meals does double duty.
Roughly 20 percent of the cost of each Restaurant Week meal gets donated directly to the North Texas Food Bank for restaurants in Dallas, Collin, and Denton counties, or to Lena Pope, the 96-year-old Fort Worth nonprofit focused on counseling, education, and behavioral health for children and families, for restaurants in Tarrant County. The event has raised close to $14 million for those two organizations combined since it started, which makes a $49 dinner feel like a genuinely good use of a Tuesday night rather than just a deal.
The restaurant list runs wide enough this year to cover almost any kind of night out. Uchiko Plano is running an eight-course prix fixe at $99 that includes A5 wagyu and Kaluga caviar, one of the stronger values on the entire list once the actual courses are accounted for. Plano alone has around 20 restaurants participating this year, from Benihana to Brasão Brazilian Steakhouse to Bulla Gastrobar, and Tarrant County’s Southlake pocket is well represented too, with steakhouses like Kirby’s running Prime beef and lobster tail specials alongside brunch spots leaning into the classics.
A few practical notes worth knowing before booking. Reservations run through OpenTable or by contacting restaurants directly, and DFWRestaurantWeek.com has a dynamic map, presented by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, that filters by cuisine, timing, and location, which is a faster way to plan a multi-stop week than scrolling a flat list.
Most participating restaurants extend their Restaurant Week menus well past the original one-week format, breaking the run into four blocks: Preview Weekend, then Week 1 (Aug. 10 to 16), Week 2 (Aug. 17 to 23), Week 3 (Aug. 24 to 30), and a final stretch through Sept. 7. Popular restaurants and the $99 Signature Experience menus tend to book up fastest, so anyone with a specific restaurant in mind should reserve now rather than wait for the week itself.
Thirty years in, DFW Restaurant Week has become less of a single week and closer to a monthlong dining season, and this anniversary run is shaping up to be the biggest version of it yet.
