Cabo Grande has been pushing chicken this August. Sorry to be so late conveying this PR puffery (the flier picture of a leg and thigh is very yellow), but chicken (even when slow roasted with Southwestern seasonings for $7.95) is hard to get excited about. What is interesting about Cabo Grande, located in Fort Worth's Sundance Square, is that it used to be Cabo The Original 'Mix-Mex' Grill (don't ask), a bar that served food on the side to help guests absorb tequila nutrients better. But owner BFX Hospitality Group, which also owns H3 Ranch Grill, the Stockyards Hotel and Lucile's Stateside Bistro, sold the Cabo concept along with the two Cabo units in Houston to investors for roughly $3 million last September. Therefore, the third Cabo unit on Sundance Square had to change, which it did by becoming Cabo Grande last March with a heavier lean toward Tex-Mex and away from hooch. BFX Hospitality Group voted to take itself private in a management buyout last December, changing its name to Hospitality Concepts LLC in the process. Not only that, but it added a New Orleans bar called the Cat's Meow to its holdings, which kind of makes you wonder what they serve besides swizzle sticks.
Salve! pastry chef David Brawley has left Phil and Janet Cobb's fledgling restaurant. "I just think it's best for both of us," he says. "They need some financial flexibility, and I need to get on with my career." Is it just me, or does "financial flexibility" have an ominous ring?...Former Sfuzzi/FoodStar heavyweight Michael Costa of DMC Hospitality is close to completing a purchase deal on Fishmongers Seafood Market and Grill, a restaurant and market located in a Fort Worth building said to have once housed one of the first 7-Elevens. Costa is planning a 90-seat restaurant with owner Leslie Gordon, who has operated Fishmongers for some four years. After adding live lobster tanks, Costa plans to take Fishmongers and spin it off into a separate restaurant company he hopes to grow with more acquisitions...Whit Meyers of the Entertainment Collaborative (Green Room, Jeroboam, Gypsy Tea Room) says he doesn't want his nose to get any longer, so he refuses to say when the group's sexy subterranean downtown lounge Umlaut will open. Downtown predictions tend to make one awfully slick. "Don't make a liar out of me," he stresses. "That's what kind of happened to Jeroboam, and I always felt I was being made out to be a liar...I would say when I thought it was going to [open] and then something would happen. The honest answer is I'm not sure. It's sooner than later." Those hoping to place bets on Whit's nose job should know he said Umlaut will open late last year.
