State Fair News

State Fair of Texas reveals Big Tex Awards finalists with new drinks

State Fair of Texas Dubai fries

SFOT

The fried food finalists are here: The State Fair of Texas has revealed the finalists for the 21st Annual Big Tex Choice Awards presented by Karbach Brewing Company, with new twists for 2025.

The Big Tex Choice Awards is the State Fair's annual competition of concessionaires submitting new festival creations.

This year, the State Fair has changed the formula by adding a new category called Sippers, dedicated to beverages — putting the number of finalists at 15 instead of the 10 that have been the standard since this annual competition was launched in 2005.

The addition of beverages further formalizes the contest's categories of Savory, Sweet, and now Sipper, with five finalists for each. (In earlier years, there was not such a defined line on how many finalists were savory or sweet.) There will also be an award for "Most Creative."

The finalists were chosen from 76 entries, which were then narrowed down to 30 semi-finalists, each evaluated on four criteria: uniqueness, creativity, presentation, and taste. Winners will be crowned on Thursday, August 21.

Regardless of who wins, all semifinalist creations will be sold at the Fair this year.

The State Fair of Texas will run from September 26 to October 19. Find tickets and other information online.

SAVORY

Brisket & Brew Stuffed Pretzels, Glen & Sherri Kusak
Brisket is blended with beer cheese made from cheddar, wrapped in pretzel dough, sprinkled with salt, and baked. They're easy to carry and made for munching as you wander the fairgrounds.

Crab & Mozzarella Arancini, Stefan T. Nedwetzky
Rice ball made of crab, rice, mozzarella cheese, onion, red bell pepper, lemon, black pepper, garlic, coriander, and basil, served with marinara.

Deep Fried Deli Tacos, Brent & Juan Reaves
New York deli meets Dallas taqueria: Pastrami, mashed potatoes, cheese in a corn tortilla, fried and served with a spicy green sauce.

Vietnamese Crunch Dog, The Le Family
Asian twist on corn dog, coated in a crispy mix of panko and bánh mì crumbs, with sriracha mayo and pickled veggies.

Wagyu Bacon Cheeseburger Deviled Egg Sliders, Kendall Williams
Cajun-seasoned Wagyu patty with cheddar and bacon sandwiched between two fried, panko-crusted deviled egg halves, with ketchup-inspired sauce.

SWEET

Candy Lemon Sour Face, Chef Heather J. Perkins
Sweet-and-sour candy-coated lemon.

Chill & Thrill Delight, Tony & Terry Bednar
A twist on Colombia’s famous Salpicon de Frutas featuring a cup of diced mango, pineapple, watermelon, grapes, cantaloupe, and strawberries, soaked in watermelon juice with a splash of lime, topped with shaved mango sorbet.

Dubai Chocolate Cheesecake, Stephen El Gidi
Served in a cup, featuring Belgian chocolate, pistachio spread, kataifi, tahini, chunks of New York-style cheesecake, drizzled with chocolate, pistachio cream, and crushed pistachios.

Rousso’s Dubai Chocolate Funnel Cake Fries, Isaac & Joey Rousso
Funnel cake strips drizzled with chocolate, topped with pistachio cream and knafeh pastry.

Tex’s Toast á la Mode, Michelle & Jayse Edwards
French toast topped with vanilla ice cream, caramel, real maple syrup, and cinnamon cereal crunch for that extra pop.

SIPPER

Coconut Quadruple, Binh Tran & My Vo
Whole fresh, young coconut with a coconut slushy topped with soft-serve coconut ice cream and a sprinkling of coconut flakes.

Cookie Chaos Milkshake, Brad Weiss
Cookie butter milkshake with snickerdoodle chunks, Oreo cookies, Golden Oreo cookies, cookie butter cookie dough, Biscoff cookie, and cookie butter drizzle, with a rim coated in crushed Biscoff cookie pieces.

Hot Honeycomb Lemonade Shake Up, Tom Grace
Lemonade Shake Up with fresh-squeezed lemons, sugar, water, and a good shake has already been been a fair classic, now with honey and fresh jalapeños, rimmed with chamoy and Tajin and topped with a skewer of honeycomb, and optional shot of alcohol.

Nevins Dirty Red Bull Tex-arita, Josey Nevins Mayes & Tami Jo Nevins Mayes
"Dirty Tex-arita" cocktail contains sweet cream liquor, Blue Razz Pop Rocks, Watermelon Red Bull margarita, andBlueberry Red Bull margarita, topped with Pop Rocks, blueberries, and watermelon.

Poppin' Boba Rita, Justin Martinez
Frozen fresh lime juice margarita with wine-infused poppin’ boba pearls in mango or strawberry flavor. Make it "dirty" with a swirl of cold foam, coconut syrup, and a Tajin rim.

These 15 finalists will battle for the four titles on Thursday, August 21, at 2 pm. The Big Tex Choice Awards event is closed to the public but viewers can follow along online on the @StateFairofTX Instagram or Facebook.

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Closure News

The original Dick's Last Resort in Dallas closes after 40 years

Dick's Last Resort

A venerable destination in the downtown Dallas area has closed: Dick's Last Resort, the notoriously saucy restaurant and bar at 2211 Lamar St., has closed permanently, after 40 years.

According to a representative from the Nashville-based chain, the final day for the Dallas location was November 30.

"Business at that location had been declining, and they were facing an increase in rent, so they made a decision to close," the representative said.

Dick's Last Resort was founded right here in Dallas in 1985 as a winking, impudent good-time spot with good bar food and cold beer, at a time when leg warmers and mullets were the rage.

The concept was hatched by bon vivant "Buffalo George" Toomer and Richard "Dick" Chase, centered on a saga about a bad boy named Dick whose big-league plans had failed and who pivoted to open a laid-back bar full of attitude and dick jokes. The restaurant featured gruff staffers and a Southern-style menu in a rowdy roadhouse environment.

It became a huge success, with customers coming eagerly to be insulted, get pelted with napkins and straws, and wear paper hats with crude comments and insults written in a sharpie such as "I've nailed more wood than HGTV." That atmosphere made it a popular destination for bachelorette parties and other group events, and it was a big tourist draw at its then-location in the West End. (It relocated to its current location close to American Airlines Center in 2005.)

Although the food took a backseat to the atmosphere, the menu — written on the wall — featured ribs, chicken, wings, and burgers, served casually in paper and buckets. In its heyday and for many years, it remained lodged on the TABC Top 10 list for beer sales in Dallas.

Chase was ousted for embezzling by the financial backers, who went on to grow the concept into a national chain, with locations in Boston, Chicago, and London. Those are now closed, but there are currently a dozen Dick's across the southeast in Florida, South Carolina, Tennessee, as well as Las Vegas and a longtime location in San Antonio on the Riverwalk.

Dallas restaurateur Mike McRae, who currently owns restaurants such as Dodie's Cajun Diner in Rockwall, Stan's Blue Note, and McRae's Bistro in East Dallas, worked for Dick's for 23 years and owned the Dallas location for 12 years.

"I was hired as their general manager 18 months after it opened," McRae says. "Richard Chase was kind of a hothead. He would fire people on the drop of a pin. We had a pink plastic flamingo with a light inside behind the bar, and he was adamant that the light be on all the time. He once fired a GM because the light was off."

Dick's was owned by Steven Schiff, a Dallas entrepreneur who was in real estate and oil, but had no experience in the restaurant industry.

"Steve talked to Norman Brinker and said, 'I've got this place but I don't want to be in the restaurant business — how do I sell this?'" McRae says. "Norman said, 'You need to open two more locations in different cities.' So we opened the location in San Antonio and a third in downtown Chicago. Both were wildly successful — way more than Dallas. These places were netting over $1 million in yearly profits, which was a lot of money back then. We opened one in London, Boston, San Diego, Myrtle Beach, they were in major cities all over the U.S."

McRae eventually became director of operations and they kept it running until 2009 when they sold the company to its current ownership group based in Nashville. McRae bought the Dallas location in 2010, later joined by his partner Gabe Nicolella; they owned it for 12 years before selling it back to the corporate owners in 2021.

"We did some crazy things in those days, like creating a fake restroom with a pair of tennis shoes visible and a tape recording of farting sounds," McRae says. "We only hired people who had been class clowns, who couldn't get jobs anywhere else. We served food in buckets and the placemats were torn-off butcher paper — things you couldn't get away with now."

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