Al Biernat’s is named for the late Dallas steakhouse owner, who died in 2024. After nearly 30 years on Oak Lawn Avenue in Dallas, the restaurant will expand to downtown Fort Worth.
Two established Dallas restaurants, Al Biernat’s and Lubellas Patisserie, are expanding to Tarrant County.
A new Al Biernat’s steakhouse will open in Fort Worth, general manager Brad Fuller told CultureMap and then confirmed to The Dallas Morning News. It’ll be the third Al Biernat’s steakhouse in Dallas-Fort Worth, after the original opened nearly 30 years ago on Oak Lawn Avenue, followed by a second near Addison, on Spring Valley Road, established about a decade ago.
Al Biernat’s is expected to open in late 2027, Fuller said, and the timeline is still in flux.
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Married couple Ismael Trejo and Maria Becerra co-own Lubellas Patisserie, the Dallas shop expanding to Arlington.
Ben Torres/Special Contributor
The new Arlington bakery is south of Interstate 30, near AT&T Stadium, the home of the Dallas Cowboys. Lubellas is known for its croissants and conchas. It will also sell sandwiches at lunch and brunch dishes like chilaquiles and eggs Benedict, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
Lubellas Patisserie is expected to open at 978 N. Collins St., Arlington, in fall 2026.
More about Al Biernat’s expansion to Fort Worth
News of the steakhouse’s growth into Tarrant County landed on late restaurant owner Al Biernat’s birthday — which he would have liked, noted Fuller, Biernat’s nephew. Biernat died in 2024 from ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease. Before his death, Biernat talked to The News about the aggressive, debilitating disease. He said his restaurants could live on without him.
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The Fort Worth restaurant will open downtown near the convention center, in an old savings and loan building. Biernat’s wife, Jeannie, gave her blessing on the new location, as it’s a big step for the established restaurant that’s never expanded outside Dallas.
“Al loved Fort Worth, and we have a lot of Fort Worth clientele,” Fuller said in an email.
Before his death, Biernat was considering opening restaurants in Southlake and Westlake, but plans were never finalized.
Fuller believes Fort Worth “has all the factors for a successful Al Biernat’s: a wonderful local clientele, great convention center, events at Dickies Arena, TCU, downtown daytime foot traffic — and you can’t discount the Taylor Sheridan Effect.”
He’s referring to the Yellowstone and Landman creator, a Fort Worth-raised Texan who helped secured $1.5 billion in state film incentives and is credited with keeping Cowtown in the national conversation as a cowboy chic city.
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According to Fuller, “Fort Worth is on fire,” and his Texas steakhouse wants a piece of it. He compared Fort Worth to the hot Dallas restaurant scene in the 1980s. Back then, Biernat was a young general manager at The Palm, the power lunch spot in downtown Dallas that displayed caricatures of its most famous regulars on the wall. The Palm was where Biernat flexed his muscles as a charismatic maître d’, and when he opened his own restaurant in 1998, many of his customers from the ’80s joined him on Oak Lawn Avenue.
Palm’s manager Al Biernat (left), assistant manager Brian Perry (right), and head waiter Mike Valdez (seated) are pictured with the famous celebrity wall of caricatures at The Palm restaurant in Dallas’ West End in 1994.
File Photo/Staff
“The brakes were put on expansion as soon as I knew Al was ill,” Fuller wrote, but “he wanted me to expand and grow the brand.”
More to come once construction starts on Al Biernat’s in Fort Worth.
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Al Biernat’s is expected to open at 913 Houston St., Fort Worth, in late 2027.
