Photo provided by Bonnell’s Fine Texas Cuisine
Sometimes, you just need a piece of fried chicken in your fingers. That most recent call came during breakfast on a recent Saturday morning when the Fort Worth restaurateur Jon Bonnell posted a Facebook message about that evening’s takeout family meal at his places: “Yep, back by popular demand, crispy fried chicken.”
“Ruh-roh,” I said, reading my Facebook feed. “What,” said my wife, curiously. Fried chicken night at Bonnell’s, I said. “Well,” she said, “if you like.”
Now, Julie wasn’t volunteering to wait in the line. From the day in mid-March when Bonnell decided to close his Bonnell’s and Waters restaurants to just prix fixe daily family-style dinners, the line at the Bryant Irvin Road-Southwest Boulevard location has typically backed up to the Chisholm Trail by 3 p.m. most days, an hour before the 4 p.m. open of drive-through distribution. But this was fried chicken night — enough chicken, salad, green beans, mashed potatoes, biscuits, gravy, and brownies for four, just $10 per head. I knew I’d have to be in the line by 2:30 p.m. or risk being shut out.
Sure enough, the line was backed up to the Chisholm Trail by the time I got in it. But I took plenty of reading material. And if COVID-19 is, by some folks’ estimation, a plague upon the earth for evil and sin, at least the weather was good, and the wait in line comfortable. And little more than two hours later (about 30-35 minutes wait once the restaurant opened), I was through the line.
Yes, I could have gone to KFC or Popeyes and been in and out in minutes. But the panko-coated, delightfully salted chicken is, um, a plausible impostor. And the Bonnell’s lines — owing to the years of community goodwill he’s built since opening in 2001 — quickly picked up a cult following during COVID-19 and resulting business closures and employee layoffs. This was my third time through the line — the first, turkey dinners for my family, and the second, our offering of baked ziti in a meal train for some friends from church.
Julie and I saw the coming impact of COVID-19 on restaurants earlier than it hit Texas, having spent the first week of March on spring break in San Francisco. Chinatown was already dead, and traffic in the best restaurants and districts across the city was way off. One evening, we were one of two families eating at North Beach Pizza, a San Francisco institution. We were in the city when the federal government allowed the COVID-ravaged Grand Princess cruise ship to dock at the Port of Oakland. A week later, the city shut down all nonessential businesses.
Restaurateurs in Fort Worth were already worried. The week we returned from California, I ordered a couple dozen doughnuts for my officemates (we switched to working from home a week and a half later) from K Donuts on the Southside, our favorite doughnut shop. “Are you still working?” one of the owners asked then.
Julie and I have been spreading our takeout dollars around over the last month. Last week, while out on a lunchtime interview and photo shoot in The Foundry District, the four-cheeseburger and fries, $30 family meal at M&O Station was a convenient pickup welcomed by my family when I got home. M&O’s to-go menu is expansive. You must call ahead and order, even if you’re already standing in the parking lot, as I was.
My deadline week go-to is always a garlic chicken from Szechuan Chinese Restaurant on Fort Worth’s West Side. This time, I had it delivered via Favor — as efficient as I’ve always experienced, although you definitely pay for the convenience — to the front porch home office of my home on the Near Southside, instead of my regular office on the far West Side.
If you want to guarantee consistency in your takeout food, you’ll get it, of course, from restaurants whose model was already takeout and delivery. We’ve had great pizza delivered by i Fratelli on the Near Southside — takeout and delivery was already their thing — and another great pizza we picked up from Buffalo Bros at TCU. Grab-and-go salads from The Meat Board on Camp Bowie — we also purchased some fine rib-eyes for the grill — and takeout tacos from Torchy’s Tacos have also found their way to our table.
We’ve ordered in from old faves like Lili’s Bistro (family four pack for $49, and we chose the elk sausage pasta entrée) and Piola Italian Restaurant & Garden, where we ordered eggplant parmigiana, penne pesto, and primavera.
We’ve tried some new restaurants, including hefty takeout orders twice from Derek Allan’s Texas Barbecue on the Near Southside. We’ve taken out fast-food only twice, both from Sonic and both on the way back home from shopping.
For dessert, the freezer has been full of Melt Ice Creams from the West Magnolia Avenue store, so much so that my wife and I worry about our A1C levels. You order ahead and are met curbside by an employee. Bonnell’s also is selling Melt pints in his lines. We’d have eaten more so far, but I spaced once and accidently drove to Braum’s; by the time I backtracked, Melt was closed.
We’ve taken advantage of the convenience of to-go alcoholic beverages, allowed temporarily during COVID-19 by Gov. Greg Abbott. We’ll go ahead and join the chorus of voices asking Abbott to make this permanent, so long as everyone behaves.
Of course, even the best takeout doesn’t replace the experience of hanging out in your favorite restaurants. It’s springtime, the best time to hang out on the patio at Joe T. Garcia’s, eating oozing enchiladas and nachos and absorbing cold margaritas. The restaurateurs look forward to that day, too.
Bonnell, for one, has been gratified by customers’ response to his family meals. But catering fell off a cliff, and he had to lay off 240 employees and cut back to a skeletal crew. “It’s not the way I would choose to do business.”