If Guy Fieri’s Food Network show Diners, drive-ins and pubs When Fort Worth restaurant Fred’s Texas Café came into the spotlight in 2009, “everything changed,” says co-owner Quincy Wallace.
When Food Network called 15 years later and offered to film Fieri’s spinoff TV show Triple D Nation At the nearly 50-year-old Fort Worth restaurant, the answer was a resounding yes, Wallace said. The episode, which premieres Aug. 23, 2024, will likely reintroduce this shabby-chic spot to a new audience.
Wallace, like the many restaurant owners in North Texas who are in Diners, drive-ins and pubssaid Food Network, catapulted the cozy Fort Worth restaurant to the national stage.
“I can directly correlate our success with DDD,” Wallace said. “It just put us on top.”
That is, after the Diners, drive-ins and pubs In the spotlight: Fred’s Texas Cafe expanded to two more locations. Wallace said without the help of Food Network, that may never have happened.
The restaurant left its longtime location on Currie Street in Fort Worth and moved west during the COVID-19 pandemic. Fred’s will soon expand to Crowley, and Wallace has ambitions to continue growing the restaurant.
Restaurant founders JD and Gari Chandler opened Fred’s in 1978 as a small eatery with good food, cold beer and Southern charm. And who is Fred? Their dog. Simply put, Fred’s seemed like the perfect find for a spiky-haired Food Network star who toured the U.S. in a red convertible, searching for hidden treasures.
After Diners, drive-ins and pubs Wallace remembers the first couple who said they visited the restaurant just because of the TV show. They drove around the country in an RV and ate where Fieri ate.
“It blew my mind that someone from Florida would come to Fort Worth to eat a cheeseburger at Fred’s,” Wallace said.
He quickly got used to the attention of the Food Network. For years, Wallace knew when DDD a repeat was broadcast because customers mentioned it.
Wallace remains silent about what Triple D Nation filmed at the restaurant on Western Center Boulevard in Fort Worth. “It was a completely different experience this time,” he said.
But the show notes give a taste of what to expect: “In Fort Worth, Texas, cowboy cuisine hits the spot with a chuckwagon chicken fried steak and a top-of-the-line burger with a bologna twist,” read some of the online notes for Season 6, Episode 7. To us, it sounds like Wallace will be preparing one of the restaurant’s four chicken fried steaks, as well as the Bolo Burger, a cheeseburger topped with smoked bologna and a pile of crispy onion rings.
Wallace doesn’t want to get too ahead of himself, but he’s prepared for a fiery Fieri to give the deal a new lease of life.
“If this thing shoots us down like DDD done, I don’t even know what to expect,” he said.
His first job at Fred’s was as a dishwasher in the late 1990s; he has experienced a lot in the almost 30 years.
“We’re getting bigger,” he said. “And if this (show) achieves even half of what the first one did, my goals are achievable.”
“Bacon, Burgers and Pork Butt”, the seventh episode of the sixth season on Triple D NationPremiering at 8 p.m. on August 23, 2024 on the Food Network. Fieri will visit Buttermilk Kitchen in Atlanta, The Thumb BBQ in Scottsdale, Arizona, and Fred’s Texas Cafe in Fort Worth.
Both locations of Fred’s Texas Cafe in Fort Worth – 7101 Camp Bowie West and 2730 Western Center Blvd. – will host watch parties on the evening of August 23, 2024.
For more food news, visit Sarah Blaskovich on X at @sblaskovich.
