The 90-year-old Star Cafe, a chicken-fried steak landmark that opened in the heyday of the Fort Worth Stockyards livestock market and meat packinghouses, closed this week and will change to a different restaurant.
The bar connected to the Star will stay open weekends, owner Drew Boatman said. He is looking at other concepts for the restaurant, he said.
The Star opened in the 1930s as Edna’s Star Cafe in a 1920 building. It operated as a cafe and bar at 111 W. Exchange Ave. under a variety of names including Star Cafe until 1979, when it was remodeled and opened as one of the original Black-eyed Pea Restaurants.
Betty and Don Boles bought it in 1980, restoring the name Star Cafe and establishing a reputation for sizzling lemon-garlic steaks, thick burgers and one of the state’s best chicken-fried steaks. The Boles family sold it in 2022.
The Star Cafe & Cocktails, seen Sept. 30, 2026, opened in 1980.
Boatman has owned it since 2024.
The Stockyards Historic District is booming with more than 9 million visitors a year, but restaurants have begun to feel the economic squeeze of high food and labor costs and the sharp nationwide downturn in dining and liquor sales.
Chef Victor Villarreal posted a video on Facebook showing the neon “open” sign going dark. He wrote that a special dinner Tuesday night marked the closing and thanked past and present employees.
A server was also shown in a social media video on the restaurant’s last day.
The chicken-fried steak lunch at the Star Cafe in the Stockyards.
The baseball-cut top sirloin, a 10- to 11-ounce steak with baked potato, put the Star Cafe on top as the best cheap steakhouse in a DFW.com best of list.
Dining and Cooking