Dallas has the opportunity to do something funny and (probably) humiliating.
As you know, Dallas is America’s losingest city at the James Beard Awards for restaurants, bars, and bakeries. Our food industry hasn’t won a competitive Beard Award since 1994, a streak of 120 losses in a row. (I’ve included candidates from Plano, Allen, Frisco, Irving, and Arlington in that tally, but not Denton.)
No other city can say they’ve lost 120 Beards in a row. Dallas is not the awards’ least acclaimed city; San Antonio and Fort Worth have never won a voted-on category, but they have had far fewer chances. We lose more than anyone else.
Know what would put the cherry on top? We could host the awards and still lose.
Last week the James Beard Foundation invited bids to find a new host city for the 2029 through 2033 award ceremonies. Chicago played host from 2015 through 2028, and many chefs and media members make the trip because Chicago is so darn cool. Chicago is, the press release notes, invited to renew its contract.
But what if Dallas stepped in and claimed the Beards? Well, the journalists and media figures who vote on winners will finally visit our town, which I’m convinced is the primary hurdle Dallas faces. We don’t attract tourism traffic the same way that Austin or Houston do, and voters are not allowed to vote for restaurants they haven’t visited. Maybe everyone will converge on Dallas, eat a Starship bagel, visit Olōyō and Lucia, grab a drink at Las Almas Rotas, and boom, Dallas gets a win in 2030.
On the other hand, maybe the losing streak extends past 150. We could embarrass ourselves so, so bad. Maybe we’d end our contract after 2033, having lost every single nomination every single year. God, that would be funny. I mean, it would be humiliating and awful. But it would also be funny.