A chicken-fried steak institution that fed Fort Worth Stockyards workers and tourists for 90 years has closed its doors this week, ending a run that stretched back to the heyday of the district's livestock market and meat packinghouses. Star Cafe, tucked into a 1920 building at 111 W. Exchange Ave., served its final meals following a special dinner Tuesday night, marking the end of an era for one of the district's most recognizable names.
The closure was first reported by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, whose longtime Eats Beat columnist Bud Kennedy has chronicled Texas dining since 1985 and is marking his 40th year covering restaurants for the paper. According to that report, chef Victor Villarreal posted a Facebook video showing the restaurant's neon Open sign going dark, writing that Tuesday's dinner marked the closing and thanking past and present employees for their work. A server told the camera it was the restaurant's last day, and a staffer separately posted on social media that Star Cafe had closed, the paper noted.
A Building With Nearly a Century of Names
The restaurant's roots trace to the 1930s, when it opened as Edna's Star Cafe inside the 1920-era building, operating as a cafe and bar before taking the simpler Star Cafe name it kept until 1979, per the Star-Telegram's reporting. That year the space was remodeled and briefly became one of the original Black-Eyed Pea restaurants. Betty and Don Boles bought the property in 1980, restored the Star Cafe name, and built its reputation on sizzling lemon-garlic steaks, thick burgers, and what became known as one of the state's best chicken-fried steaks.
The Boles family held onto the restaurant until selling it in 2022, after which the space went through further changes in ownership before bar owner Drew Boatman bought Star Cafe in 2024, according to the Star-Telegram. Separate reporting from CultureMap Fort Worth details a slightly different ownership sequence, noting that hospitality veteran Drew Boatman's acquisition actually closed in December 2023 and included The Basement Bar, a subterranean live-music venue at 105 W. Exchange Ave. billed as the world's smallest honky tonk. CultureMap also reports that prior to Boatman's purchase, entrepreneur Chris Flores had owned Star Cafe for two years as a steakhouse, before Boatman brought in chef Victor Villarreal to revamp the menu and rebrand it as Star Cafe and Cocktails.
Among the dishes that built the restaurant's following were its chicken-fried steak lunches and a baseball-cut top sirloin weighing 10 to 11 ounces, served with a baked potato. That steak once helped rank Star Cafe as the best cheap steakhouse in a DFW.com best-of list, the Star-Telegram reported.
Booming Tourism, Squeezed Margins
Star Cafe's closure lands even as the Fort Worth Stockyards Historic District, officially listed on the National Register of Historic Places on June 29, 1976, continues to post record crowds. The 98-acre district with 46 contributing historic buildings, per Wikipedia, now draws more than 10 million visitors annually, up from roughly 3 million a decade ago, generating $285 million in total district sales as of 2026, according to CBS News. The Star-Telegram's own reporting put annual visitation to the historic district at 9 million a year, citing economic pressure from high food and labor costs and a sharp nationwide downturn in dining and liquor sales as forces squeezing restaurants despite the crowds.
Those pressures are not unique to Star Cafe. A midyear report by RestaurantData found Texas led the nation in restaurant closures in the first half of 2026, with 1,039 establishments shutting down statewide, including 120 verified closures in the Dallas-Fort Worth region, as reported by WFAA. The station tied the wave of closures to elevated wholesale food costs, rising wages, and reduced consumer spending, even as individual tourist districts like the Stockyards continue to thrive.
A District in Transition
Real estate around Star Cafe is shifting just as fast as its restaurant scene. CBS News reported that lead developer Stockyards Heritage Development Co., alongside Majestic Realty Co. and Hickman Companies, cancelled a planned $1 billion Phase II expansion in August 2026 that was meant to double the district's footprint by 2032, citing shifting market conditions. Days later, Delightful Development Co. and Woodbine Development Co. unveiled a separate $160 million resort project featuring two luxury hotels and 225 rooms near Main and 23rd streets, with groundbreaking planned for 2027, CBS News reported.
Just steps away on Exchange Avenue, the landmark Stockyards Hotel and its flagship restaurant H3 Ranch closed in April 2026 for a $30 million renovation, with H3 Ranch slated to reopen later this year and the hotel in early 2027, according to WFAA. Directly above Star Cafe's space sits Miss Molly's Hotel, an eight-room bed-and-breakfast that opened in 1910 as the Palace Rooms bordello, according to Ghost City Tours.
Star Cafe joins a growing list of North Texas restaurants that have shut down in 2026 amid broader cost pressures facing the industry. The closure underscores how the district's booming visitor numbers haven't been enough to keep every legacy kitchen's lights on.
