On my first visit to Fort Worth, a hot August back in the 1980s, I stayed at what was then a Ramada Inn west of the Beach Street exit from I-30.Just east of that location, in what I now know as the Tandy Hills, there was a restaurant on top of a hill, facing west towards downtown Fort Worth.
When I moved to Fort Worth that restaurant was closed and with its rundown appearance it appeared to have been closed for a long time.
I figured that that restaurant pre-dated the building of the Interstate, with the new road blocking easy access to the restaurant. I also speculated that the restaurant might have dated back to the Prohibition era, with its high location giving a view in all directions, so that a Speakeasy could hide the booze when the cops came raiding.
A few weeks ago I was hiking the Tandy Hills and came upon an Old Man with a Cane. I asked him about the restaurant. He said he'd been to it a couple times, back in the 1970s. He thought the name was Calamity Jane's.
So, I Googled for a Calamity Jane's restaurant in Fort Worth. No info. Then I tried "old restaurant hill I-3o fort worth" or something like that. This brought up a restaurant on Ben Avenue called Fort Worth Cattle Drive Restaurant. Clicking on the first of the dozens of results I knew I had the right one, due to the map.
That's the Google Earth satellite view of the restaurant's location in the picture above. The restaurant was to the left of the parking lot at the end of the road.
Now, here's where it gets weird. There are dozens of restaurant listing type websites which list Fort Worth Cattle Drive Restaurant as if it where still in existence, with most of them wanting me to write the first review of this long dead restaurant. And to post a photo of the restaurant.
The only actual info I found about the Fort Worth Cattle Drive Restaurant is that it was built in the 1970s and though it was highly visible to drivers on I-30, people had trouble figuring out how to get to it. That doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
This restaurant died well before the Internet became the monster it is today. Why would so many websites list this dead restaurant as still being and alive?
And what's the real story about it. Was the Fort Worth Cattle Drive Restaurant really born in the 1970s? Or did it pre-date the Interstate and the Internet? The Old Man with the Cane thought it'd been there a long time due to its old wild west style. But then he also thought it was named Calamity Jane's, so who knows how reliable his memory is.
Ironically, years before I discovered how great the Tandy Hills was for hiking, I found my way to Ben Avenue to check out the site of the then demolished restaurant. The foundation was still in place, so you could figure out the layout. It had a water feature that you walked across via a bridge to enter the place. The Old Man with the Cane told me the restaurant had a large outdoor patio.
If the restaurant were still alive today that large outdoor patio would be looking at a nice view in the distance and a not so great view close-up, because it would be looking down on Chesapeake Energy's notorious Samuels Avenue Barnett Shale Natural Gas Drilling Site.
So, do any of my one or two readers know anything about the Fort Worth Cattle Drive Restaurant?
