FORT WORTH
What if a Texas cattle drive town had an Italian restaurant?
We’ll find out this fall when La Pistola Kitchen + Saloon opens in a former taco restaurant on Montgomery Street across from Dickies Arena.
La Pistola is a new project in the former Taco Heads at 1812 Montgomery St.
It’s from restaurateur Jeffrey Yarbrough and “wine boss” Camille McDonald, part of the original team that made the Teddy Wong’s upscale Chinese restaurants a success.
La Pistola is Italian. But it’s western, like the old “spaghetti western” movies shot in Spain and Italy to save money.
In other words, it’s the kind of Italian restaurant a Beth Dutton would love.
Yarbrough described it as a “cowboy-looking” restaurant with a midprice menu of entrees and pastas, specialty Italian sandwiches at lunch and a bar with a carefully curated wine and cocktail list.
Both Yarbrough and McDonald said they wanted to do a 1970s retro western theme and became fascinated with the idea of the renegade moviemakers filming westerns in the Italian countryside with no permits, and doing western town scenes in Rome.
Eli Wallach, left, and Clint Eastwood starred in the 1966 spaghetti western movie “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.” Courtesy of United Artists
The name “La Pistola” means “the gun” in Italian as well as Spanish, and fits the spirit of the outlaw moviemakers as well as most of the plots.
The dinner menu will include a Texas wagyu steak, Iberico pork from Texas and chicken along with rotating pasta dishes, Yarbrough said.
“Say I didn’t want to get dressed up and I didn’t want to spend $150,” he said, saying La Pistola won’t be like West Seventh Street fine-dining restaurants: “It’ll be lower than the super-high stuff.”
The proposed sign for La Pistola Kitchen + Saloon, a western-style Italian restaurant in Fort Worth, Texas Courtesy of La Pistola
The midday menu of sandwiches with Italian deli meats and cheeses will appeal to the lunchy Cultural District crowd, he said.
“Everybody in the world wants a great sandwich,” he said, dropping the name of Fort Worth’s favorite classic sub shop.
“You can always go to Galligaskin’s, and that’s great, but this will be a next-level sandwich,” he said.
Stunt actor Ricardo Cruz performs during a show for tourists at Fort Bravo/Texas Hollywood on Aug. 20, 2015, in Almeria, Spain. Fort Bravo/Texas Hollywood, built in the 1960s in Almeria, Spain, is a western style set for films, which is also used for tourist tours. Originally used by film director Sergio Leone for “A Fistful of Dollars,” “For a Few Dollars More” and “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly,” which led to the spaghetti western genre, today it is still used to shoot many different types of films. Juan Naharro Gimenez Getty Images
The makeover of the Taco Heads building — actually two old houses connected by a patio — is as impressive as the Teddy Wong’s conversion from a 7-Eleven. Yarbrough and McDonald are no longer involved in Teddy Wong’s, which recently opened a second location in Weatherford.
The former patio has been enclosed to make a new dining room with windows facing the Cultural District. The bar is remodeled.
Crews found the 80-plus-year-old lumber from the original homes, Yarbrough said.
The two buildings first appeared in Star-Telegram archives as rent houses in the early 1940s. They were converted in the 1970s and had been home to a pet-grooming service, antique shop, thrift shop and small Tex-Mex restaurant before they were connected in 2016 for the opening of Taco Heads.
The La Pistola website lists a September opening.
English musician Ringo Starr, left, then the drummer with The Beatles, with actor Mal Evans on the set of the spaghetti western “Blindman.” filmed in Almeria, Spain, July 14, 1971. Jack Kay Daily Express/Getty Images 
A general view of the film set at Fort Bravo/Texas Hollywood on Aug. 20, 2015, in Almeria, Spain. Fort Bravo/Texas Hollywood, built in the 1960s in Almeria, Spain, is a western-style set for films which is also used for tourist tours. Originally used by film director Sergio Leone for “A Fistful of Dollars,” “For a Few Dollars More” and “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly,” which lead to the “spaghetti western” genre, today it is still used to shoot many different types of films. Juan Naharro Gimenez Getty Images
This story was originally published July 30, 2026 at 4:39 AM.
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Bud Kennedy is celebrating his 40th year writing about restaurants in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. He has written the “Eats Beat” dining column in print since 1985 and online since 1992 — that’s more than 3,000 columns about Texas cafes, barbecue, burgers and where to eat.
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