Shine your boots, dust your hat, it’s rodeo season in Fort Worth.
The Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo, the nation’s longest-running fat stock show and rodeo, officially opened on Jan. 16 and runs through Feb. 7. The livestock show started in 1896 and, in 1918, the rodeo competition was added. It was a simple affair back then; the events favored function over fashion and were more about selling purebred cattle than the performative acculturation we see today.
Today’s Fort Worth doesn’t look much like the town of 125 years ago. Doesn’t even look much like the town I grew up in. It used to be more Billy Bob’s than Billy Bob Thornton. Today it’s very William Robert. Change is good, and though it’s gotten petty shiny, Ft. Worth hospitality is still as warm as ever.
Sprinkled with ultra luxury hotels, fine dining, and world-class museums, any day in Cowtown is a good day. Rodeo season, the city’s de facto social season, is a celebratory time to visit. so plan your visit based on the rodeo’s event schedule and be on the lookout for events hosted by area establishments.
Bowie House, with its elegant, tasteful, and culturally relevant décor, art, and food and beverage offerings, is an ideal place to enjoy rodeo-adjacent activities before or after the show.
The hotel is a 15-minute walk from Dickies Arena and has restaurant options from fine dining at Bricks and Horses to more casual fare at The Yard. Every evening, rodeo goers can enjoy cocktails at The Bar and enjoy live music from local artists and dance lessons on Wednesdays.
The hotel also offers Bowie House FWSSR Experience packages that includes reserved seating in The Bar at Bowie House prior to the rodeo, a behind-the-chutes tour of Dickies Arena, two plaza-level FWSSR tickets, including access to the Reliant Club, and round-trip transportation to and from Dickies Arena and the hotel.
Visit The Bowie House’s website for reservations and more information.
While you’re in the neighborhood, you can visit the Amon Carter Museum of American Art or the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, which is the oldest art museum in the state of Texas.
My all-time favorite sweet shop in Ft. Worth, Swiss Pastry Shop, has created a “Rodeo Kouign” Amann which is filled with pulled pork, jalapeno Havarti, and pickled red onion in a Swiss butter croissant dough.
If you just want to pop in for dinner before the rodeo, here are some of my favorites that are relatively close to the arena: Don Artemio and Dos Mares for elevated Mexican food and seafood, Terry Black’s BBQ, The Chumley House, a London-inspired steakhouse, and 61 Osteria for outstanding Italian food. Slightly less close to the arena but equally good dining options are Teddy Wong’s Dumpling’s & Wine and Café Margot.
If you can’t make this year’s FWSSR which ends Feb. 7, you can always take in a slightly less glam version at the Cowtown Coliseum in the Stockyards. Though you won’t see the colorful outfits and full Texana on display there, the venue is smaller and you get a little closer to the action. I took my family, including my future son-in-law who is from France, to the Stockyard’s rodeo venue and it was a lot of fun.
And if you go, tell William Robert howdy for me.
