Al Biernat’s is finally doing something it hasn’t done in almost thirty years: crossing over into Fort Worth. The Dallas steakhouse just signed a lease on a building at 913 Houston St., across from the Flat Iron Building and directly opposite where the city’s new Convention Center ballroom is going up. It’ll be the restaurant’s third location, and its first outside Dallas proper.
For a restaurant this tied to its city, that’s a bigger deal than the announcement makes it sound. Al Biernat opened the original on Oak Lawn Avenue in 1998, after years working his way up through the industry, including fifteen years as general manager at the Palm’s Dallas location before he struck out on his own. The restaurant became one of those rooms where half of Dallas seemed to know each other, a place people described less as a steakhouse and more as a clubhouse with a wine list. A second location, Al Biernat’s North, followed near Addison in 2017 with a reported four million dollar buildout. In nearly thirty years, that’s been the entire footprint. Two restaurants, one city, no rush.
Co-owner Brad Fuller, who is Al’s nephew and has run the operation for years alongside Al’s wife Jeannie Biernat, says the opportunity came together last summer and the two of them simply liked the building too much to pass on it. He’s been candid that the timing isn’t a coincidence either, pointing to what he’s called the Taylor Sheridan effect, the wave of attention Fort Worth has gotten as Sheridan’s shows and his own ties to the city have put it back on the map for people who might otherwise have defaulted to Dallas.
Details beyond the address are still thin. Fuller has said they’re in the early stages of space planning and design and plan to share renderings once there’s something to show. What’s not in question is the format. Both existing locations run on the same playbook: a 30-ounce porterhouse, filet mignon finished with lobster thermidor, Chilean sea bass, and a coconut cream pie that regulars order before they’ve even looked at the rest of the dessert menu. There’s no reason to expect Fort Worth gets a different version of that.
What’s genuinely rare here is the geography. Dallas and Fort Worth have always kept their restaurant identities fairly separate, and it’s unusual for a restaurant this rooted in one city’s culture to set up shop in the other’s. An opening timeline of late 2027 has been mentioned, though nothing is locked in yet. For now, Fort Worth gets to anticipate a Dallas institution finally showing up on its side of the Trinity.
